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FROM 

EXHS 

BY 

JETTE H. WALWORTH. 


3RD, CLARKE & CO , Pmu9H!R8, 


OmcAao, New York and San Francisco, 


BOOKS IvIOST 


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SELFOTtDf CLJLRKE <£; CO,, Eublishers, 

CHICAGO. NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 


THAT 


GIRL FROM TEXAS. 



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THAT 


GIRL FROM TEXAS 




BY 



JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH 

AUTHOR OF “the BAR SINISTER,” “SOUTHERN SILHOUETTES,” 

“the new man at rossmere,” etc. 


CO/Vq 

copyright- 



8 \m 

‘^'^ShinGTO^' 



BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 

CHICAC^b, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO 

P1THLISIIER5; 





COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY 
BELFORD, CLARKE «& CO. 


E. B. Sheldon & Co., 
Electrotypers and Printers, 
New Haven, Conn. 


TO 

MISS ESTELLE CLAYTON, 

THE 

TALENTED YOUNG AMERICAN ACTRESS, 
FOR WHOSE 

EXCLUSIVE BENEFIT AND PERSONAL USE 
THIS VOLUME 
HAS BEEN DRAMATIZED, 

IT IS 

DEDICATED 

WITH THE KINDLY REGARDS 


OF THE AUTHOR 



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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A SUMMER INTERIOR 9 

II. Andrew receives another shock 22 

III. Flo becomes the unwilling depositary of a se- 

cret 32 

IV. Mrs. Mason’s view of the case 41 

V. Mrs. Newcome’s goal 50 

VI. MoRE^ PERPLEXITY FOR MrS. NeWCOME 6l 

VII. The only loophole 70 

VIII. Rose Neuman 85 

IX. Taking the plunge 95 

X. Mr. Roberts is baffled 106 

XI. Bella’s awakening 112 

XII. Lord Rainsforth’s son 122 

XIII. 'Mrs. Newcome resumes operations 130 

XIV. The cord snaps 138 

XV. A SLIP TwixT cup and lip 148 

XVI. An innocent victim 159 

XVII. Tightening coils 169 

XVIII. A conference proposed 179 

XIX. What came of the conference 187 

XX. Mr. Roberts receives a shock 194 

XXL Mrs. Newcome receives a shock 207 

XXII. Flo receives a shock 217 

XXIIL Misconstrued 227 

XXIV. Mystification 236 

XXV. Clouds lifting 245 

XXVI. Conclusion 254 


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THAT 


GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


CHAPTER I. 

A SUMMER INTERIOR. 

Mrs. Robert Newcome’s home, on one of the most 
fashionable avenues of New York city, presented such a 
very different aspect to an outside observer in summer 
from what it did in winter, that it was no great matter 
of wonderment to see a most untimely visitor of hers, 
who arrived in front of the house in the middle of a 
very hot day in June, hesitate quite a little while before 
demanding entrance. 

In winter, any one provincial enough to stare in 
through lace-veiled windows, with tantalizing peep-holes 
made in the curtains by looping them back with broad 
satin ribbons, could catch glimpses of an interior artistic 
enough to have satisfied the most fastidious authority on 
upholstery. Softly tinted walls furnished a fine back- 
ground for a collection of paintings of which Mrs. Robert 
Newcome was justly proud ; the elaborate frescoes over- 
head' had not been ignored in the selection of the satin 
upholstery, with which they harmonized admirably ; that 
accumulation of bric-a-brac^ which goes without saying 
wherever women and wealth combine to fill apartments, 
was all of the choicest and best selected sort in Mrs. 

9 


10 


TIIA T GIRL RROM TEXAS. 


Newcome’s rooms, and furnished an endless source of 
entertainment to the speechless or the timid guest of 
this great dame of a great city. There was always plenty 
of flowers in her parlors — flowers that could be smelled 
without shocking one’s sense of the reality of things. 
Her lace-draped windows were never disgraced by any 
of those devices that simulate nature in stiff stupidity 
and scentless ugliness. Mrs. Newcome was altogether 
too genuine for such cheap shams. To have planted 
untrustworthy little topply stands with hideous pots of 
artificial flowers in her windows would have been to insult 
the memory of a terribly long line of ancestors, all of 
whom, Mrs. Newcome was proud to assure herself and 
others, had been “ genuine in the most genuine sense 
of the word, in small matters as well as in great.” 

On Tuesday, in winter, the floral display in Mrs. 
Newcome’s parlors was always at its best, for Tuesday 
was “her day,” and at short intervals all through the 
afternoon her great mahogany front door would open 
noiselessly to enfold visitors of like splendid indications 
with the glow and the warmth and the richness of the 
lace-veiled parlors. Her callers harmonized with the 
costly frescoes and the softly yielding upholstery and 
the priceless Persian rugs under their dainty feet. If a 
wearer of fustian had been reduced to the alternative 
of going through the eye of a needle or obtaining en- 
trance into Mrs. Newcome’s parlor on her reception day, 
the eye of the needle would have suggested the easier 
mode of transit. “Things must harmonize,” Mrs. New- 
come was fond of saying, and she did not harmonize 
with fustian in any of its manifestations. Everybody 
said that Mrs, Newcome received superbly, and if the 


^ SUMMER INTERIOR, 


1 1 

everybody to whom she opened her doors on her recep- 
tion day was not a competent judge on that subject, it 
would be difficult to pick out a subject it could pass on 
intelligently. 

The splendor of Mrs. Newcome’s home, however, was 
subject to annual eclipses whose return was so regular 
that they needed no predictions beforehand. Promptly 
on the first of June this glowing interior underwent a 
sort of petrifaction. It was very much as if the soul 
went out of it all and left a stiff, colorless, unresponsive 
body behind. Uncompromising wooden shutters re- 
placed the satin-looped curtains that had been given to 
such indiscreet disclosures. Graceless Holland shades 
dropped rigidly down behind the plate-glass windows of 
the upper stories ; and if it had not been for the same 
grim frontage of brown stone and the same clumsy stone 
cannon-balls on the posts of the stoop stairs and the 
unchanged number on the silver door-plate, anyone 
unfamiliar with the fact of these annual eclipses might 
well have wasted some precious moments in dubious 
speculation. 

Which was just what befell on the June day in ques- 
tion when a hack drew up in front of the house and a 
young lady leaned forward to stare out through the door 
held open by the driver, but made no motion toward 
leaving the vehicle. Instead, she said in a very positive 
voice : 

“This can’t be the place, driver; yqu must have made 
some mistake.” 

“ The street and the number you gave me at the 
depot,” said the man, first scanning the inhospitable 




THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


front of the house and then the perplexed young face of 
his fare. “ Does the folks expect you,” he added, jerk- 
ing a thumb towards the wooden shutters. 

“ They ought to, but I don’t know whether they do or 
not. I’m quite sure nobody lives in that gloomy old 
house.” 

“ It’s summer, you know,” said the driver, with an air 
of imparting information. 

“As if I didn’t know that already,” said the young 
lady, seizing an immense fan that was lying among her 
parcels on the front seat and describing huge arcs in the 
air with it. 

“ And there ain’t nobody in town, you know.” 

“ Nobody in town ! ” She received this additional bit 
of information from the cabman in indignant incredulity. 

“ Leastways nobody which is anybody,” the driver 
amended. 

“•Well, suppose you ring that bell before I take the 
trouble to get out. I have another friend to go to if this 
one’s away,” said the young lady, composedly, settling 
herself back on the seat to await results. 

Evidently she was not a girl easily thrown off her 
balance, as was fully indicated by the unruffled smooth- 
ness of her broad, white forehead and the soft composure 
of her voice under what might be considered somewhat 
trying circumstances. She was very hot and very tired, 
had come a long way to visit the people she had a right 
to find behind those wooden shutters, and could not 
possibly be expected to relish finding herself barred out. 
It seemed a wonderfully long time to her before the 
front door was finally opened in response to the repeated 
assaults of her driver upon the bell-pull. She could see 


A SUMMER INTERIOR. 


T3 

the man who opened it, taking in the driver and the hack 
and herself with surprised and disapproving glances. 
She could not hear what the two men were saying to 
each other, for the nearer uproar of the street, but she 
felt quite sure no words of welcome or hospitality v;ere 
being lost to her ears. When the cabtnan finally turned 
his face in her direction there was such an absolute air 
of defeat about him that the matter seemed to have 
reached a point calling for her personal intervention. 
She sprang nimbly out of the carriage and rather run- 
ning than walking up the steps asked in a voice that was 
imperative in spite of being low-pitched and sweet, if she 
was or was not mistaken in thinking that Mr. Robert 
Newcome lived in that house. 

“ He do live here, ma’am, said the guardian of the 
door, only a trifle less sulkily than he had spoken to the 
cabman. 

“ And he is in town ? ” 

“ Yes, miss.” 

“ Then, driver, bring my things in.” 

She swept past both men into the hall that looked dark 
enough after the brilliant sunshine she had been facing 
so long. The driver went back to fetch in her luggage, 
while the other man stared at her in helpless bewilder- 
ment. There she stood by the hat-rack, on which she 
had laid her veil and little hand-bag, placidly inspecting 
her face in the rack-glass as she wiped some of the dust 
and grit of railroad travel out of her eyes and off her 
temples. She was so much of a lady in appearance that 
it would scarcely do to order her out peremptorily, or to 
turn her out by the shoulders, but in the fifteen years he, 
Andrew Graham, had been in the Newcome employ, 


14 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


1 


never had he been placed in such a trying predicament. 
What was he to do with her until Mr. Newcome should 
come back from the office at six o’clock? And, indeed, 
what was to be done with her afterwards ? “ If she was 

old and ugly now, instead of being as straight as a post 
and as handsome -as a picture,” Andrew soliloquized, 
discontentedly, regarding the young woman at the hat-rack 
with austere disapproval. There she stood, calmly draw- 
ing off her gloves, with the air of a person who had come 
to stay, and frowning her down wasn’t going to be such 
an easy thing to do either. 

She saw his perplexity, pitied it, and smiled at it. 
She would convince him that she was no impostor with- 
out waiting to be endorsed by his employers. 

“ You are Andrew, aren’t you ? ” she asked, smiling 
brightly into his worried face. 

“ Yes’m.” 

“ And you are the one that used to come after Bella to 
fetch her home from Miss Henderson’s school up in Har- 
lem.” 

“ You’ve hit it again,” said Andrew, resolutely refusing 
to be thawed by the young woman’s pretty manner and 
polite words. 

“ You see I remember you, although you have evidently 
forgotten all about me. Don’t you remember ever so 
often bringing a little girl home with Bella on Friday to 
stay over till Monday ? She came from way down South, 
and hadn’t any chance to go to her own home. Her 
name was Flo Dorsey.” 

“ Indeed, then, and I don’t, miss ; not but that I might 
a done it time and again, for our Miss Bella was just the 
one to be always doin’ a friendly thing of that sort.” 


A SUMMER INTERIOR. 


15 


“ When you find your manners, Andrew, I will tell you 
some more,” she said, laughing; “in the meantime, here 
is my purse. Please pay that man what he ought to 
have.” 

She flung her pocket-book into his hand, and turning' 
from him walked as deliberately toward the parlor as if 
she had grown up in the house. Andrew looked after her 
in genuine distress. “ Suppose this was some confidence 
game ! This was just the time of year for such charac- 
ters to be prowling about. But what was a fellow to do .? 
On the one hand there was the front door wide open for 
the convenience of the driver, who seemed as if he would 
never have done with the lady’s parcels ; on the other, 
there was she in full possession of the house, going the 
dear only knew where. “ Rummagin’,” Andrew called it, 
in a savage undertone. He extracted some crumbs of 
satisfaction from the reflection that there was no way of 
escape possible to her but by the front door, so she must 
needs retrace her steps if she wanted to go out. How 
did he know but that big trunk and all those satchels 
and baskets were full of brickbats, or waste paper, or 
worthless rags, or something of that sort ? Andrew had 
not been living in New York half a lifetime without being 
aware of all sorts of possibilities in the way of crime and 
iniquity, and he rather plumed himself on the integrity of 
soul that made it possible for him to hold fast by his 
bump of caution in face of such excessive prettiness as 
belonged to this daring young woman who had just in- 
vaded the house that was left to him as a sacred trust 
every summer. 

“ I’ll keep my eye on her and let her stay till the 
master is come,” was Andrew’s mental resolution, as he 



1 6 THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 

-closed the front door on the cabman finally, and went in 
search of the young lady, whom he found absorbing the 
contents of the family photograph album that lay on a 
table in the hollands-shrouded parlors. She had taken 
6ff her hat, and seemed more than ever at her ease, and 
quite comfortable. 

“ You are uneasy about me, Andrew,” she said, look- 
ing calmly up into his anxious face, as he approached 
her with her pocket-book in his hand ; “ you are not at 
all sure whether you have let an impostor into the house 
or not.” 

Andrew’s solemn silence convicted him. He mopped 
his forehead anxiously, but said never a word in denial of 
the grave charge. 

“ I admire you excessively, Andrew, you are so impo- 
litely honest. But now look,” she spread the album 
conspicuously open on her lap, “ and see if I don’t know 
all about the Newcome family. First of all, here is Mr. 
Newcome himself. A handsome gentleman, tall and dig- 
nified and gentle, with a kind word for every woman and 
girl, because he thinks they are a helpless lot at best, and 
just as generous and good to his family as a man can 
possibly.be.” 

“ Right you are, there,” said Andrew, looking down 
upon the picture on which the invader had laid one white 
index finger; then he added in a mutter intended for no 
mortal ear, “ P’raps it would a been better for him if he 
was’nt quite so forbearin’ and freehanded with ’em.” 

“ And this is Mrs. Newcome. I remember her as a 
lady with beautiful eyes and shoulders, and such a 
queenly walk that she used to make me almost crazy to 
be grown up so I could wear trains and walk just as she 


X 


A SUMxMER INTERIOR. 


17 

did. Bella and I used to wait on her like two little dar- 
keys. I remember her as the kind of woman that always 
gets her own way in the long run, whether it’s the best 
way or not.” 

“ She’s got ’em all yet, too,” said Andrew, comprehen- 
sively. 

“ All what .? ” 

“ The beautiful eyes and the fine shoulders and the 
queen’s walk and her own way and the rest of it.” Then 
he checked himself suddenly, and assumed a more rigid 
physical and social attitude. He began to entertain the 
profoundest respect for the powers of divination displayed 
by this young woman, but it was not for him to be discus- 
sing the family affairs with a confidence woman. He was 
up to this dodge too. She was one of them fortune 
telling or mind-reading or spirit-nonsense folks that 
wanted to pump him dry,” and then, when the opportunity 
came, make believe she had got all her information from 
the other world. He maintained a grim silence as the 
young lady passed on through the book until she came to 
a full-length photograph of a young man, conspicuous 
principally for the length of his moustache and the lan- 
guor of his fine eyes. 

“ Oh, dear, here he is ! Mr. R. Algernon Newcome. 
Is he as sweet as ever, Andrew ? I know I used to quite 
hate him, but that was when he was plain Bob Newcome, 
and didn’t wear such a lovely moustache.” 

The grizzled moustache that covered Andrew’s own 
eminently respectable upper lip twitched slightly with 
amusement at this disrespectful allusion to the only son 
of the house. But he made no comment, not even when 
the stranger suddenly lifted the book to her lips and 


2 


8 


TIIA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


pressed a rapturous kiss on the pictured face of a young 
girl, who seemed to smile back at her from a pair of great 
serious eyes, out of which even photography could not 
take all the light. 

“ My darling Bella, I wish you could open your lips and 
tell your stupid Andrew here that I am really your old 
Flo, come to pay you a visit, and that I am sitting here 
starved to death.” 

Andrew’s professional instincts came promptly to the 
front. 

“ I’m sure, miss, if you are a friend of Miss Bella’s, 
I’m not the one to put a slight on you, but — ” he hesi- 
tated. How could he go away to prepare luncheon for 
this invader and leave the whole house at her mercy } 

“ Andrew,” she closed the album and looked at him 
very solemnly, “ is there a Bible anywhere about this for- 
saken home ? ” 

“ A Bible, miss ? ” 

“ Yes, Andrew, a Bible. I want to take my solemn 
bath on it that my mamma wrote to Bella’s mamma that I 
would be on here this very day to pay them that long- 
promised visit; and I must say, Andrew, that you are 
treating me scandalously just because I happened to get 
here when they are out of town and you are too stupid to 
reiVi^mber me. If you’ll go out and call me a cab I’ll go 
td‘M''h6tbl somewhere and write to Mrs. Newcome, and tell 
her how you took me for a confidence woman and treated 
ihef' v^o'fs’e than a tramp. Yes, Andrew,” impressively, 
'“‘'v^brse than a tramp, for while I was sitting in the car- 
tia^e Wait! tig for you to come to the door, I saw a tramp 
bbm'6 but of the area gate with his hands full of some- 
Vhing^'iy e!aY,* and here I sit hungry enough to eat my kid 


A SUMMER INTERIOR. 


19 

gloves, and you haven’t so much as offered me a drink of 
water.” 

Andrew was completely vanquished, and dropping sud- 
denly from reserved caution to abject apology shuffled 
out of the room, promising to return as soon as a lunch- 
eon could be prepared. The invader smiled a gracious 
pardon on him and leaned luxuriously back against the 
chair, promising to be very patient and not to devour her 
gloves nor the family album either if she could help it.” 

“ Andrew ! ” 

Hearing his name called imperatively when he had 
gotten half-way down the hall, Andrew returned meekly 
to take a fresh order from the imperious young lady. 

“ Andrew,” she said, smiling at him sweetly, I am a 
terrible sleepy head, and if I should fall asleep waiting 
for that lunch, just keep it warm, will you, until I wake up 
again. Mamma never disturbs me at home ; she says it 
is not good for my health.” She put up her hand to con- 
ceal a yawn and let her head drop heavily back on the 
chair. 

“ She’s a cool one,” Andrew muttered to himself, as he 
started off again ; “ might belong to Queen Vic’s own 
family circle.” 

Left to herself the invader calmly surveyed the great 
parlors, where dim vistas of shrouded splendor stretched 
out deceitfully in the faces of the long mirrors that con- 
fronted her at every turn. The evidences of luxury sur- 
rounding her did not seem to impress her particularly ; 
on the contrary, if her looks and her thoughts had been 
translated into words, they would have sounded rather 
condemnatory than otherwise. 

She was trying to fancy her own home, where the pre- 


20 


THA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


siding genius, her mother, was a sort of fixed star, under 
the auspices that she found Bella’s home. “ Fancy dear 
old mamma running away from dear old papa this way 
every summer. And fancy poor old papa trying to get 
along without dear old mamma for two little weeks even. 
It just isn’t fanciable. Poor Mr. Newcome ! And he’s 
so sweet and unselfish too. Dear me, I’d feel sorrier for 
him if I wasn’t just literally starving to death. I don’t 
know whether I’m most sleepy or hungry.” 

Then she yawned, and getting up walked slowly about 
by way of shaking off the growing sense of sleepiness 
that threatened to overcome her. Her explorations 
brought her to an inviting little divan, tucked snugly 
away in the embrasure made by the big bay window, 
where potted plants blossomed tropically every winter. 
A heavy stuff portiere dropped in rigid folds from the 
gilt bar overhead to the floor. It was altogether irre- 
sistible, and without a moment’s hesitation she curled up 
on the divan, drew the portiere close together, and was 
sound asleep in an incredibly short space of time. She 
had been three whole days and nights travelling all the 
way from her far-away home in Texas, and tired nature 
was reasserting herself. Andrew, coming back to the 
parlor to announce her lunch ready, was nonplussed at 
her disappearance. A thrill of terror passed through 
him. After all, then, she was a “ confidence woman,” 
and that pretty bit of coaxing for lunch had all been to 
throw him “off the track.” It was too much to be 
borne. He clutched his hair with both hands, and called 
himself no end of ugly names. It never once occurred to 
him to investigate the alcove. In all his experience of 
the “best society ” no one had ever been known to go to 


A SUMMER INTERIOR. 


21 


sleep in Mrs. Newcome’s parlors. Doubtless this hand- 
some interloper was at that very moment “rummaging” 
in the master’s library. The very idea of such audacity 
made the hair on Andrew’s well-trained head rise in hor- 
ror. He made scuffling haste in the direction of the door 
that opened into that apartment. To his increasing hor- 
ror it refused to yield to his grasp. It was locked on the 
inside. What further evidence did he need to convict 
him of his own criminal negligence in allowing this allur- 
ing young female out of his sight ? He would make 
immediate amends to the family by “ bouncing ” this 
confidence woman as soon as she emerged. “ Bouncing 
her ; ” Andrew repeated the effective word wrathfully, and 
dropped on his knees to apply his eyes to the keyhole 
without the slightest compunction on the score of pro- 
priety. With an ejaculation of surprise bordering on 
dismay he bounded to his feet again and rushed from 
the room. The library was certainly occupied, but not by 
the strange young woman. 


CHAPTER II. 


ANDREW RECEIVES ANOTHER SHOJK. 

If Andrew had prolonged his key-hole investigations 
a second longer his perturbed spirit would have been 
set at rest on one score at least. He would have discov- 
ered the whereabouts of the young woman over whose 
advent he had worked himself up into a perfect fever of 
anxiety. 

With a yawn and an audible exclamation of dismay, 
Miss Dorsey sat bolt' upright on the divan behind the 
portiere, refreshed but slightly bewildered. It required 
several applications of her knuckles to her eyes to arouse 
her* thoroughly, by which time she began to feel afresh 
the gnawing pangs of hunger, together with a growing 
sense of indignation at Andrew’s remarkable conduct. 
She felt quite sure that the stupidest darkey on her far- 
away plantation home would never have treated a visitor 
of hers in this manner. She looked quite as cross as it 
was in her to look when she finally parted the portiere 
and advanced into the room bent upon ringing Andrew 
up and speaking her mind to him very plainly this time. 
With the strident determination upon her to assert her 
claim to more hospitable treatment, she looked about her 
for a bell-rope. There was none to be found. How was 
she to divine that the small porcelain button scarcely dis- 
tinguishable from a flower in the dado was its modern 

22 


ANDREW RECEIVES ANOTHER SHOCK. 


successor ? Baffled in her jdesire to ring the delinquent 
butler into her presence she desperately resolved to try 
the piano as the only other possible means of conveying 
to him, wherever he might be, the information that she 
was awake and ravening. 

She was rejoiced to find that the instrument was not 
locked, and seating herself on the shrouded stool, which 
was as the ghost of its gorgeous winter self, she ran her 
fingers tentatively up and down the ivory keys. Her 
first intention had been to dash off a noisy rondo of some 
sort, but the magic spell that a really good instrument 
always exercises upon a true musician seized on her, sum- 
moning to her finger-tips the softest and sweetest melo- 
dies in her repertoire. From experimental chords she 
glided most naturally into “ Home, Sweet Home.” 
There was no other thought with her at that juncture. 

It was her first flight from the sheltering warmth of a 
very true and very sweet home. She had expected to be 
received rapturously into another home almost as bright 
and warm. By contrast with he’r expectations the chilling 
effects of Mrs. Newcome’s deserted parlors was tremen- 
dous. She heartily wished she had never started out on 
this expedition. Perhaps all these reflections, added to 
the pensiveness born of prolonged fasting, infused an 
unusual touch of pathos into her playing, making the 
familiar old melody sound sweeter and sadder than ever 
before to one pair of astonished ears within hearing of it. 

The master of the house, sitting close by in his library, 
plunged in a reverie of the sombrest hue, heard it and 
suddenly raised his head to hear it better. It was a sad, 
worn face thus brought into full view. The gas had 
never been turned off since he had entered the room 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


after dinner the night before. He had forgotten it. It 
combined now with the hot sunshine that streamed 
through the window, whose shade he had not thought to 
draw down, to bring out every crease and line on his 
tired face. There were plenty of them to bring out. 
Deep furrows across his broad forehead, seaming it from 
temple to temple ; clusters of crow’s feet branching from 
the corners of his eyes that had almost lost their trick of 
smiling ; pathetic lines, beginning at the fine, thin nostrils, 
coursing downward towards his chin, that was covered 
with the neglected stubble of several days’ growth. 

He had once upon a time been more fastidious about 
these details of his appearance than now. What differ- 
ence did it make ? There was no one at home to care or 
to chide. Not that he excused himself on that score. 
He glanced down disapprovingly at his gown and slip- 
pers. The day was well-nigh gone and he had not 
thought to change them for coat and shoes. What mat- 
ter? There was no one there to care or to notice. No 
one to notice the rapid increase in the care-lines on his 
face in a few days. No one to notice the shadowy gloom 
in his gentle eyes. No one to take note of the fact that 
his bed had not been slept in at all the night before. 
No one except Andrew, who had made the startling dis- 
covery of his presence in the house, when looking for 
Miss Dorsey through the key-hole, and who had gone off 
excitedly to impart the news to Mrs. Mason, who received 
it with a running comment on the “goin’s on of some 
folks which should be unmentionable.” 

“Like as not he’s been sittin’ just that way all night,” 
says Andrew, pityingly, having feelingly described how 
he had seen Mr. Newcome through the key-hole, with his 


ANDREW RECEIVES ANOTHER SHOCK. 


25 


arms folded on the table and his head buried in them 
dejectedly. “He don’t take much comfort out of life 
when the folks is away. He might die in there and 
nobody be any the wiser, with him a slippin’ off to his 
meals at the club-house for all the world like a houseless 
tramp and vagabone.” 

Andrew’s sentence was somewhat involved, but his 
heart was all right, and the bare mention of such a dread- 
ful possibility in connection with the master, whom he 
loved with loyal devotion, sent a thrill of terror through 
him. There was a sudden infusion of mystery into the 
familiar atmosphere of the house, and it struck Andrew 
with chilling force. Mrs. Mason shared the responsibil- 
ities of the house with him in summer, and she might as 
well bear her share of the anxiety too. Together the two 
took wordy counsel and tried to unravel by the very dim 
light of their own intelligence the strange conduct of the 
master of the house and the mysterious presence of the 
“ unknown female,” as Andrew descriptively catalogued 
Miss Dorsey. 

Into the sense of absolute isolation which had swept 
over Mr. Newcome, bowing him to the very depth of 
dejection, the soft strains of “ Home, Sweet Home,” 
being played in his own parlor on Bella’s piano, stole 
with bewildering effect at first. He raised his head and 
listened, then a smile of exceeding sweetness lighted his 
worn face and he rose to his feet unsteadily. He was 
trembling and had to grasp the chair he had been sitting 
in before he could trust himself to proceed any further. 
He looked down at himself with disapproval. Of course 
it was Bella, run down from Newport to spend the night 
at home. She supposed he was at his office. She would 


26 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


find fault with him for his neglected appearance. He 
passed his hands down both sides of his head and face to 
bring the dishevelled hairs somewhat into place. He 
would take her by surprise. She would not expect to see 
him before the dinner hour. 

Bella or Robert, or sometimes even Mrs. Newcome, 
paid him a visit of a day or a few hours at least during 
the season. Mrs. Newcome not often. She was too 
fleshy to care about moving about in summer. Robert, 
he was sorry to reflect, came principally when his funds 
were low. But Bella was all right. He rather believed 
if Bella had her own way things would be a little more 
home-like for him, even during the months when every- 
body was out of town. But Bella was not likely to have 
her owji way. There was but one way in that establish- 
ment, and that was Mrs. Newcome’s. 

He opened the library door softly, so as not to dis- 
turb the player. There she sat, her back turned to him ; 
how round and slim her waist, and what a pretty slope 
her shoulders had ! God bless her ! The sun seemed to 
shine into his heart and into his eyes as he stole quietly 
up behind her and stretching wide his yearning arms 
clasped them suddenly and closely about the player’s 
form. 

With a shriek Flo faced suddenly upon her assailant 
and then fell back upon the piano-stool laughing and 
crying hysterically. 

“ God bless my soul,” said Mr. Newcome, gazing down 
at the unknown face before him. His offending arms 
hung limply down by his side. He could think of noth- 
ing to do or to say. 


Andre IV receives Another shock. 2 ; 

Miss Dorsey recovered herself with her usual quickness. 

“ It’s all right, Mr. Newcome,” she said, wiping the 
tears from her eyes ; “ quite right. I suppose I had 
grown nervous sitting here by myself so long that you 
startled me. It was so different, you know, from what I 
had expected.” 

“ What had you expected and who are you, if I may 
ask so impertinent a question on such slight acquaint- 
ance ? ” Mr. Newcome said. “ I am afraid I must have 
startled you immensely. I really beg your pardon.’” 

• “ You did, horribly. I didn’t know I could be so 
ridiculously nervous. It all comes from being so hun- 
gry. Why, I expected, you know, that Bob — I beg his 
pardon, Mr. R. Algernon Newcome, would come down to 
the depot in a swell carriage, behind dashing horses, you 
know, and that we would drive up to the house and 
find Bella standing on the front steps just as frantic to 
see me as I am to see her, and that Mrs. Newcome would 
meet me at least as near as the parlor door and kiss 
me, and then at dinner-time, after I’d gotten rid of all 
the railroad dust and put on one of my prettiest dresses, 
you were to come home and be glad to see me, too.” 

“ I’m sure,” said Mr. Newcome, smiling down at her, 
“ my greeting threatened to be a little too ardent. This 
must be my daughter’s friend. Miss Dorsey.” 

“ I thought I was before I got here, but I’m sure I 
should never call any one friend and treat them this 
way.” Flo’s eyes travelled around the inhospitable par- 
lors and then came back to Mr. Newcome. 

“You look so tired,” she said, her sweet face full of 
womanly* sympathy, “ and here I am grumbling on, all 
about myself.” 


28 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ A little business-worn,” Mr. Newcome said, adding 
quickly, “ but at present I am anxious to solve the mys- 
tery of this seeming neglect on my daughter’s part. I 
have been forwarding to them all letters for several 
weeks past. In that way I have not myself been noti- 
fied of your coming. Perhaps to-day’s mail may throw 
some light on it.” 

He went over to the mantelpiece, and running his 
eyes quickly over the pile of letters, selected one in a 
thick square envelope of satiny texture. This one he 
opened and ran through it silently at first. This is what 
he read : 

“ My Dear Robert : Amelia Dorsey, who never was 
known to do just the right thing, has written me word, 
that finding a neighbor of theirs, a merchant of Austin, 
was coming on to New York to buy his fall goods, she 
has seized the opportunity to send Florine on to pay 
Bella that long visit. She writes some nonsense about a 
love affair of her daughter’s that she w^ants to break off. 
Nothing could be more absurd than having her come on 
in midsummer, but there is no help for it. I will send 
Bella and Algernon over to meet her and see if she will 
bear transportation to this place. I do not propose to be 
made ridiculous by her if she is altogether unpresentable, 
but I do not care to offend the Dorseys. They are enor- 
mously rich, and Florine is the only child. Not a bad 
thing for our Algernon, by any manner of means. She 
will be in the city on the twentieth. Bella will come over 
that morning. We are all improving very rapidly in this 
delightful air. Even Rex seems to have benefited by the 
change and is getting back his old appetite. Don’t work 
too hard, and run over when you can.” 


A NDA'EW RECEIVES ANOTHER SHOCK. 29 

It was not the first time Mr. Newcome had found men- 
tion of himself and Mrs. Newcome’s pug in the final 
clause of her letter. In fact, it did not even stir him to 
resentment, so accustomed had he grown. 

“ The explanation is here,” he said, looking away from 
the letter to Flo. “ Mrs. Newcome writes me that you 
were to be here on the twentieth, and that my son and 
daughter would be over to meet you. This is only the 
eighteenth.” 

“ Yes, Mr. Sayles started two days earlier than he first 
said he would. I remember now. Then I am afraid I 
am going to be horribly in your way. You know we 
stupid country people had no idea people actually shut up 
their houses this way and ran away from them as soon as 
it got a little bit hot.” 

“We lead a restless life here; a sort of transient 
affair at the best. No,” he added, smiling kindly, “you 
are not going to be in my way. I’m only afraid your first 
impressions of us will be very bad ones. We only keep 
Andrew and Mrs. Mason about the house when the fam- 
ily is away ; the one to keep charge of the house, and the 
other, I suspect, to chiefly make herself comfortable at 
my expense.” 

“ And who makes you comfortable,” Flo asked, impul- 
sively, then blushed, as her quick eyes caught the gloomy 
shadow that flitted over her host’s worn face. 

“ Forgive me, please,” she laid her hand lightly on the 
collar of his dressing-gown, “ and give me the kiss you 
meant for Bella. I feel so awfully far away from papa 
and mamma.” 

Mr. Newcome drew her to him and kissed her gently 
on the lips. Andrew, selecting that identical moment to 


30 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


reenter the parlor, closely followed by Mrs. Mason, 
caught his breath, and stopped in amazement. “ Such 
goings on ! ” he ejaculated under his breath. 

Flo discovered his presence, and pointing one finger at 
him, said melodramatically, “ Andrew, you are a fraud. I 
am quite sure three hours have passed since I told you I 
was starving to death, and you promised me if I would 
not eat the family album up you would bring me a lunch- 
eon, and that is the last I’ve seen of you.” 

Mr. Newcome turned so stern a face towards the delin- 
quent Andrew that he stammeringly began to apologize. 

Mrs. Mason came gracefully to the rescue. She re- 
membered Miss Bella’s friend perfectly. She had been 
getting a room ready for her. Would she go to her room 
or to the dining-room first. Perhaps Mr. Newcome was 
going to take lunch with the young lady. 

Yes. He would follow as soon as he made himself 
presentable. 

Mrs. Mason took possession of Flo and her parcels, 
leading the way to the big dining-room that looked even 
more deserted than the parlors, and promptly seated her 
at the table. 

“ I’ve been that upset about you, sir, that I forgot 
about the young lady,” said Andrew, as soon as the two 
women were out of sight. “ I didn’t know but what you 
was at the office until an hour or so ago. Since that 
time a messenger-boy has been to the door three times 
inquiring for you.” 

Mr. Newcome paled visibly. “ Who sent him, and 
what did he want ? ” 

Andrew silently presented three envelopes all addressed 
by the same hand. Mr. Newcome opened them roughly 


ANDREW RECEIVES ANOTHER SHOCK. 


3 


by running his fingers zig-zag under the envelope-flap, 
not at all after his usual methodical fashion. Each one 
bore the signature, E. V. Roberts, his junior partner. 
The first one was a simple request for Mr. Newcome’s 
presence at the office. The second one was a more per- 
emptory demand for his immediate presence. The third 
was worded differently, and informed Mr. Newcome that, 
on the whole, he, the junior partner, thought best to come 
up that evening and hold his interview in Mr. Newcomers 
house. 

“ Knowing that your family is out of town I have con- 
cluded that I can best transact my business at your 
house. You will please not leave the house until I see 
you. 

“ Sincerely your friend, 

“ E. V. Roberts.” 

It was kind enough, and the junior partner certainly 
was his friend ; nevertheless, when Mr. Newcome, having 
exchanged his slippers for shoes, and his dressing-gown 
for coat and vest, finally joined Flo at the luncheon-table, 
he looked and felt ten years older than when Andrew had 
handed him the three letters left by the messenger-boy, 
and written by his partner in business. 


CHAPTER III. 


FLO BECOMES THE UNWILLING DEPOSITARY OF A SECRET. 

“ You are not eating, you are shamming just to make 
me feel more comfortable. Eve heard mamma say there 
are some people in this world so unselfish that it is abso- 
lute discomfort to live with them. I am afraid you are 
one of that sort. Em not going to eat another bite.” 

This sudden interruption to the meal and positive 
resolution on the part of Miss Dorsey brought Mr. New- 
come out of a profound reverie, into which he had 
fallen as soon as his guest’s necessities had been pro- 
vided for. 

He looked across the table at this outspoken Texas 
maiden, with a forced smile. What a fine, frank face 
hers was — strong and sweet and pure. Her beauty had 
not been burned out under the gas-lights of the ball- 
room, her nature had not been warped by the distorting 
requirements of fashionable society. She had not come 
to think herself the most important integer of that soci- 
ety and therefore become self-enveloped. Would she 
soon ? Had her mother done well in sending her on 
this pilgrimage into the great world ? Perhaps he was 
punishing himself unnecessarily by acting a part with this 
child. It would refresh him to be honest with her to a 
certain extent, at least, and it would be truer kindness to 
her too. 


32 


THE UNWILLING DEPOSITARY OF A SECRET 33 

“You are debating within yourself,” said Flo, regard- 
ing him keenly out of her clear gray eyes, “ whether to 
tell me outright that you are tired and want to rest, or 
whether my feelings will be hurt if you don’t sit there 
pecking at your food in that insincere fashion.” She 
laughed at his rather confused expression. “ Mamma 
says I have intuitions. Maybe I have. My intuitions 
tell me just now that you are really kindly anxious to 
make up for my discomfiture in finding Bella away from 
home, but that I am awfully in your way at this particu- 
lar juncture.” 

“ My dear,” Mr. Newcome answered, with his face and 
voice full of paternal kindness, “I am going to honor 
you by being honest. I am afraid to be so with most 
of the women I meet in my wife’s parlors. They would 
call me brutal.” 

“ I can stand it and understand it too,” said Flo, nod- 
ding her wise little head at him encouragingly. “ Go on, 
please ; I like that sort of brutality.” 

But he did not go on immediately. He was apparently 
seized with a nervous tremor that brought cold drops out 
upon his forehead. He filled his glass with sherry, drank 
it down at one gulp, and then resumed : 

“ I happen just to-day to be involved in a slight busi- 
ness perplexity that preoccupies my mind to a rude ex- 
tent. I am expecting a man here on that business in an 
hour or two, and if you will just consider the house, with 
Mrs. Mason and Andrew, at your entire disposal until 
to-morrow morning, when I will try very hard to redeem 
myself in your eyes, I will go back now to the trouble- 
some papers I threw down when your sweet music made 
me forget myself so.” 


3 


34 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Now, then,” said Flo, with a little nod of approval, 

“ I like that. Papa always treats me just that way, and 
we are the very best friends in the world. He calls me 
‘ comrade,’ and ‘ a good fellow,’ and we are never afraid 
to tell each other everything we know. You know 
I haven’t any brother, as Bella has, so papa has to make 
up to me for it.” 

“ You are a fortunate girl,” Mr. Newcome muttered 
into his napkin, as he drew it across his thin lips ; and the 
darkening of the shadows in his eyes led to the conclu- 
sion that he was congratulating his young guest on not ■ 
having a brother like Bella’s. 

He pushed his chair back and rose slowly to his feet, j 
He felt strangely weak and unstrung. He could scarcely | 
understand his own physical failure just at the juncture 
when he most needed all his nerve. He had taken no 
note, all these busy, feverish months, of his gradual loss 
of flesh and force, and there was no one there to take 
note of it for him. He accused himself, contemptuously, 
of lack of will-power, and braced himself up to smile 
cheerfully down at Flo, who was eating her luncheon with 
the genuine application she brought to bear upon every- 
thing she undertook. 

“ You won’t be lonely, I hope, my child.” 

“ No,” she said, “ I’m really in a state of animal con- 
tent just now. I’ve been fed, and I’m sleepy. I am go- 
ing to ask Mrs. Mason to put me to bed. I really believe 
a week’s sleep would not compensate me for what I’ve 
lost. To-morrow Bella will be here. Do you really think 
she will be glad to see me ? She used to be fond of me 
at school, but our lives have been so different since then. 
Bella, a New York society belle ; I, nothing but a plan- 


THE UNWILLING DEPOSITARY OF A SECRET 35 


tation girl, seeing nobody, hearing nothing, just know- 
ing the world through newpapers. So stupefying, you 
know.’^ 

‘‘ My daughter is very loyal in her affection to old 
friends. I am sure she will be as glad to see you as you 
can possibly be to see her,” Mr. Newcoine said, secretly 
hoping that he was not promising too much for Bella. 

Then when he had rung Mrs. Mason up and given her 
strict injunctions to see that Miss Dorsey was made per- 
fectly comfortable, he went away and shut himself up in 
his library to prepare for that interview with his junior 
partner which was not pleasant in the anticipation. 

No sooner was Flo fairly installed in the room that 
was to be hers, so long as she stayed with the Newcomes, 
and had locked Mrs. Mason out, glad to be rid of her 
garrulousness, than she addressed herself to what she 
called a “ sacred obligation.” 

Taking out of her hand-bag a brand new morocco-backed 
book, on which was conspicuously written, in gold letter- 
ing, the word “ Diary, ” she ran her fingers through the 
clean white pages upon which no entry had yet been 
made, indulging in the usual sage reflections as to the 
future possibilities of the record she was pledged to make 
on them. But profitless reflection never did consume 
much of her time or energies. She presently seized her 
pencil and made the initial entry in accelerando move- 
ment : 

“ ‘ Asking me to keep this diary was the meanest thing 
Doctor Rogers ever did.’ 

“ There ! it sort of comforts me to think those spiteful 
words will be the first ones his eyes rest on. He said he 
knew he could trust me to make this a truthful record of 


36 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


all that I saw and did and heard while away from home, 
and — him. Of course he can. But why any record at 
all } How stupidly exacting some men are ! When one 
gets fairly launched into a thing of this sort one is so apt 
to write things down about other people that had best 
remain unwritten. For if one writes just exactly as one 
thinks, it really amounts to backbiting sometimes. And I 
don’t like to backbite people, even to please so dear a 
friend as Doctor Rogers. For instance, what a violation 
of the laws of hospitality if I were to put on record my 
first impressions of this household ? I just won’t do it, 
that’s all there is about it. This much I will say : 

“‘I am seized with an impertinent desire to comfort j 
poor Mr. Newcome and to make him smile. Oh ! his j 
face is too dreadfully sad and careworn to look at. He | 
looks twenty years older than when I used to come home 
with Bella from school. He is as thin as a razor, too. 
He used to call Bella his sunbeam. I don’t know what 
Mrs. Newcome and Bella can be made of — ’ There 
now ! ” 

She stopped and deliberately drew a long black line 
across the words alluding to her absent friend and 
hostess. “ I’ve spoiled the very first page in my pretty 
book, ” she said, looking crossly at the ugly black line. 

“ I said before I left home that diaries were either ineff- 
ably stupid or outrageously impudent. I suspect mine 
will be both. Maybe I ought to have waited until morn- 
ing. I’m so tired. But then the professional diarist 
never waits until morning. She always puts her impres- 
sions down smoking hot. She is afraid if she waits until 
morning they will have shrivelled up so that she can’t 
make any use of them, like rolls that have risen and 


THE UNWILLING DEPOSITARY OF A SECRET 37 

fallen before baking. Well, then, let them shrivel. I’m 
not a professional diarist, and don’t ever expect to be.” 

Thus calamitously ended Miss Dorsey’s first attempt to 
keep a true and faithful record of all she “ thought, felt, 
and saw ” during her absence from home, for the benefit 
of one who assumed rather a masterful attitude towards 
her, considering that he had failed entirely so far in gain- 
ing permission from the young lady’s mother to assume 
any attitude at all. 

“ I’m fit for nothing but bed, ” she said, resolutely clos- 
ing the diary and sheathing the pencil. 

It was only when she went to unlock her trunk that 
she made a startling discovery. 

The pocket-book which she had flung at Andrew, and 
which contained all her money as well as her keys, was 
not forthcoming. She sat violently down on the side of 
the bed to exercise her memory undisturbed. She was 
quite sure that Andrew had brought it back to her, and 
equally sure that she had put it in her pocket. Where, 
then, was it ? Her final conclusion was that it must have 
dropped out of her pocket while she was asleep on the 
divan behind the portihre. She was not going to forego 
the luxury of sleeping in a gown for the first time since 
leaving home. Doubtless she could find her way back 
to the drawing-room without disturbing anyone. 

She opened the door cautiously. How big and dark 
and silent the house seemed ! There was no light burning 
in the upper hallway. Evidently she was the only occu- 
pant of that floor, and she was presumed to be soundly 
sleeping by this time. Doubtless, from the light burning 
in the lower hall, Mr. Newcome was still engaged with 
that man he said he had been expecting, but they would 


r//A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


38 

be shut up in the library, and it would be but the work 
of a second to rush through the drawing-room and grope 
behind the portiere for her purse. It was too clumsy 
and bulging to be hard to find. 

She carried her programme out to the point of seizing 
the pocket-book that lay on the floor just where it had 
fallen from her pocket, but then the scene suddenly 
changed, and she was involved in a role she had certainly 
not prepared herself for. 

The library door opened abruptly, casting a flood of 
light directly upon the portihre behind which she 
crouched in abject terror. Mr. Newcome and another 
man stood in this line of light. She buried her face in 
the divan. She would not peep. Her conscientiousness 
assumed the wrong shape. It was through her ears that 
she became the unwilling depositary of a secret which 
filled her with painful amazement, and accounted for Mr. 
Newcome’s distressful appearance. 

“ It is an awkward affair, ” said the strange man 
gravely, “but I want to help you out of it, if such a thing 
can be done. Suspicion is aroused. Don’t attempt to 
leave town. It will only make matters worse for you. 
I’ll see you to-morrow night again. We’ve got some 
weeks of grace to work in. Much may be done with the 
snarl in that time.” 

Then he went away with a quick, firm step, and Flo 
rose to her feet, debating whether she should reveal the 
base part she had involuntarily played, or, in mercy to 
the man whose audible groans were even then distressing 
her ears, conceal it and slip back to her room as soon as 
he should have gone back into the library. 

While she was debating this point within her bewil- 


THE UNWILLING DEPOSITARY OF A SECRET 39 

dered mind, she heard a metallic click that filled her with 
horror. Looking through the parted folds of the portiere 
she saw Mr. Newcome standing over the table in the 
library, deliberately turning the revolving cylinder of a 
pistol about in his fingers. With the speed and noiseless- 
ness of a bird she left her covert, and in another second 
was on her knees by the library table, with both her own 

I hands clasped tightly about the deadly weapon. She was 
trembling from head to foot. 

“ I knew you were unhappy, ” she said, looking up at 
him with her great, fearless eyes full of angelic pity, 
“ but I did not know you were a coward. You need not 
frown at me that way. I have heard papa say that every 
suicide was either a coward or a lunatic. You are not a 
lunatic, so you must be a coward. You need not be 
angry with me. I am not going to move until you give 
me your sacred word of honor never again to seek this 
way out of your trouble. I did not spy on you purposely. 
I could not get into my trunk, and I ran down here to 
look for my keys. I could npt help hearing what that 
man said, but I don’t believe you have done anything 
wrong. Nobody could make me believe it of you any 
more than of my own dear papa. It may seem so to 
other people, but you know better yourself, and you 
know that God knows better, so what makes it so un- 
bearable ? ” 

With a sudden impulse she leaned forward and kissed 
the old man’s hand as it still lay clinched about the 
handle of the pistol. His fingers relaxed, the weap- 
on was in her control at last. Turning her gaze up- 
ward it was to see tears slowly trickling down the fur- 
rowed cheeks of the unhappy man. Then she rose to her 


40 


THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


feet and pressed her own handkerchief to his wet cheeks 
with the womanly grace of a born comforter. She was 
tall and straight, and could look him very directly in the 
eyes. Her voice trembled with the weight of her tender 
compassion as she said : 

“ I can’t in the least imagine what any of it means, Mr. 
Newcome, and I don’t ask to know, but I believe in you 
and you believe in yourself, don’t you ? ” 

“ Yes, ” he answered, gloomily, “ but that will not mend 
matters. You have done a bad night’s work for your- 
self and for me, too, child.” 

“You are not afraid of me,” she said, proudly. 

He smiled at her with infinite sadness. “ No, I think I 
could trust you to the world’s end. But you’ve involved 
yourself in a snarl that can only be straightened out by 
death.” 

“ Then it can only be straightened out by God,” the 
girl said, with sweet solemnity, and turned away from him 
to rid herself of the pistol she had all this while kept in a 
firm but trembling clasp. 

“ I am sure, now that you’ve had time to think about 
it, you will never try this way out of the snarl again. 
You won’t, for Bella's sake — ” Her ignorant little fin- 
gers closed upon the trigger — a sharp report, a cry of 
pain — and Flo sank slowly to the floor with her arms 
clasped about the old man’s neck, her white lips pressed 
to his ear in a husky whisper : 

Promise — quick — for Bella’s sake.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


MRS. mason’s view OF THE CASE. 

The clock in a neighboring church steeple was strik- 
ing off the twelve strokes of midnight with an amount of 
solemn impressiveness that never seemed to enter into 
the same number of strokes tolled off by the same clock 
at noonday, when Mrs. Mason entered the butler’s pan- 
try where Andrew was taking such uneasy slumber as 
could be wooed from a hard-backed chair tilted steeply 
against the/ pantry shelves, and fired an interrogatoiy at 
him with such ungentle force that he started up with 
a wide-awake assumption of activity, bringing his chair 
noisily down upon its four legs. 

“’Sleep?” 

“ No,” Andrew answered, reproachfully, as he fur- 
tively dug one knuckle into his right eye, which was 
singularly droopy about the lid. “You suppose I’d go to 
sleep with the house standing bottom upwards like ? 
How is she now ? ” 

“ Oh, she was worse scared than hurt. I icnew that 
much from the moment I clapped eyes on her. It’s her 
left arm that’s hurt. But to see the master’s face, you’d 
think she was killed, and that he’d done the killing.” 
Mrs. Mason sat heavily down in a chair on the other 
side of the table from Andrew, and mechanically re- 
sumed the silver rubbing that had been so startlingly 

41 


42 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


interrupted. “ Well, this has been a day and no mistake 
about it ! I don’t want never to see the like of it again 
in the course of my natural born existence.” 

“ As for me, I haven't begun to get at the bottom of it 
all yet,” said Andrew, whose bosom was full of chagrin 
at the fact that, when the library bell had sounded vio- 
lently for him, Mrs. Mason had been compelled to re- 
spond, as he had just stepped around the corner for a 
pitcher of beer for their mutual consumption. 

“ I don’t know that any of us ever will get at the bot- 
tom of it, Andrew,” said Mrs. Mason, mysteriously ; 
“ but we’ve just got to take what’s told us to believe, and 
swallow it. ‘ Lump it, if you don’t like it,’ is what they 
used to tell me. But you see, this is just how it all was, as 
clear as I can make it out, and I made a point of fixing 
it all as straight as a trivit in my mem’ry so as, if ever I 
was dragged up onto the witness stand, as there’s no know- 
ing yet what might happen. Gangrene might set in, you 
know, or erysipelas or mortification, even if it ain’t noth- 
ing but a bullet in the elbow, and if this strange young 
woman should happen to drop off on our hands, and, dear 
me, but wouldn’t it kick up a muss, and the madam 
away from home at that. I don’t intend them lawyer 
men shall have it in their power to say I don’t know what 
I’m talkin’ about, they do have such beatin’ down ways 
about them. No, Andrew, if it’s my fate to be dragged 
up in this case of Newcome versis Dorsey, I’m going to be 
the ‘ reliable eye-witness ’of this tragedy or nothing at all.” 

“ But there ain’t been any tragedy, yet,” said Andrew, 
who was of a more literal turn of mind than Mrs. Mason, 
and frequently found himself left behind when she gave 
full play to her fervid imagination. 


MRS. MASOA^^S VIE IV OF THE CASE. 


43 


“Not yet, Andrew, not yet. I hope I know that 
much, seeing as it was me instead of you that answered 
the most ferocious ringing I ever did hear on a library 
bell in a respectable house, which is your bell to answer, 
you know, Andrew. But I was going on to tell you 
about the tragedy that may mark this house before the 
summer is over, which is specially favorable to gangrene 
or mortification, I don’t just exactly remember which. I 
want to fix it firm in my mind, to be ready for them bad- 
gering lawyers as will have the cross-questioning of me 
as the reliable eye-witness. Impudent questioning, they’d 
best call it. Let’s illustrate, as the panyrammer men 
say.” Mrs. Mason held aloft for a second a heavy soup- 
ladle of hammered silver before laying it squarely and 
forcibly down before Andrew. “ We’ll call this soup- 
ladle the library door ; and you are respectfully requested 
to look straight through it into this square spot, which is 
the library itself. If you’ll open your sleepy eyes a bit 
wider you’ll see it all as plain as I seen it,” Mrs. Mason 
continued, sweeping a bare place on the table with her 
two fat hands, “ and it wasn’t a specially agreeable sight, 
either, I can tell you, with pistols and gore and mysteri- 
ous young females, and all laying about promiscuous. 
There’s the library door,” she repeated, indicating the 
soup ladle with one corner of her apron, prior to applying 
the latter to the moist nape of her neck. 

“ Yes,” Andrew assented, with a prolonged yawn, 
which had the effect of impeding his utterance, “ but 
don’t take a week telling your story. The door I’d like 
best to see just about now is my own bedroom door.” 

Mrs. Mason looked at him scornfully, reached over and 


44 f'J/Ar GIRL FROM TEX As. 

tilted towards herself the pitcher, which stood on the 
table near Andrew’s elbow. The dryness of its interior 
did not lessen her disgust. 

“ Maybe if I’d drunk your share of the beer and mine 
too, I’d be after wanting to go to bed, too,” she said, 
tartly; “ but as I ain’t so sure yet but what things may 
take a turn for the worse and gangrene set in, and all of 
us get into the courts before we’re done with it, I want 
you to hear me tell just how it all was, while it is fresh in 
my mind, and I can’t make no mistake about it.” 

Andrew tilted his chair on its hind legs once more, 
fixed his hazy regard upon the soup- ladle that glistened 
brightly under the gas-light overhead, and said, re- 
signedly : “ Heave ahead ! ” 

“ Well, then, here’s the library door.” Mrs. Mason 
hitched her chair a little closer to the table, by way of 
heaving ahead, and once more lifting the ladle, she re- 
placed it with a thump, in a slightly altered position. 

“ Seems like to me,” says Andrew, with husky-voiced 
sarcasm, “ that we ain’t in no particular hurry to git be- 
yond the library door.” 

“ If you’d a-seen the sight I seen when I got beyond 
that door to-night,” said the housekeeper, laying forceful 
emphasis on the personal pronouns, “ you’d a-wished 
yourself on the outside of it sure, or I don’t know you, 
that’s all.” While firing this retort at Andrew, across 
the table, Mrs. Mason had been placing some dinner 
forks in position behind the ladle. “Right here,” she re- 
sumed, indicating the fork that stood for Mr. Newcome, 
“ was the boss, down on his knees and all of a tremble 
from head to foot, with the tears just a-rainin’ over his 
poor face, and him with nothin’ to quench ’em with. 


MRS. MASQAT'S VIEW OF THE CASE. 45 

seein’ he’d clapped his handkerchief on to the bloody 
arm of the young lady. Oh, it’s a tender heart he’s got, 
and a pitchus sight was that to behold ! And that fork is 
her, a-layin’ stretched out and as white as a lily stalk.” 

“ The stalk’s green,” says Andrew, with irrepressible 
literalism. 

“ Green or blue or yeller, there she lay with her eyes 
shut, and I prays to mercy she wasri’t puttin’ any of it on, 
though if the worst comes to the worst, and gangrene 
sets in, and me summoned as the only reliable eye- 
witness in the case of Newcome versis Dorsey, I should 
feel compelled to say that that young woman certainly did 
look sorter used up — with the blood a spurtin’ promiscu- 
ous-like, all over her and Mr. Newcome and Mr. 
Roberts.” 

“•That’s what bangs me,” said Andrew, energetically 
shifting one leg from the back of the chair to the table ; 
“ I can take my ’davy to it that I saw Mr. Roberts leave 
the house before this melerdramer came off in the li- 
brary. If ITiadn’t been sure he was gone, do you sup- 
pose I’d a-left the house to get that pitcher of beer for 
you ? ” 

“ For me ! ” Mrs. Mason swept the empty pitcher and 
Andrew with one indignant glance, and then brought an- 
other fork into position with a metallic ring, “ And here 
was Mr. Roberts, lookin’ a deal more surprised than 
scared. When I reached the scene of the late tragedy, 
he was just a-stoopin’ to pick her up. It must a-been 
him that rung the bell so voracious like, for I don’t 
see how Mr. Newcome could a got to the bell at all, do 
you ? and him pinioned down so by the helpless form of 
the wounded young woman, even if he’d had his wits 


46 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


enough about him to think of a bell, which Tm quite sure 
he hadn’t. My slippers are of listin’, you know. I hope 
I know better than to go clampin’ about in high heels 
when I’m on duty, and perhaps it’s owin’ to them that I 
heard Mr. Roberts’s first words, spoke sort of low like, 
just as I reached the door : 

“ ‘ What shall I tell the servants ? ’ and the master, he 
answered just as if we wasn’t no more to be considered 
as dangerous than if I was made of wood and you was 
made of leather, ‘Anything you please; anything you 
please, only for God’s sake get help for this dear angel.’ 
Then I was on ’em, and they could’nt concoct any very 
straight story to tell me, so Mr. Roberts, he raises 
straight up, a-carrying of that great, big, tall young 
woman, and her a dead weight by reason of still being 
in a faint, just as easy as if she’d been a hand-bag, and 
empty at that, and said to me as calm-like as if he was 
asking me for a drink of ice-water : ‘ Mrs. Mason,’ says 
he, ‘ Mr. Newcome’s young friend has hurt herself in the 
arm while carelessly examining his pistols, and we want 
a doctor. Show me where to put her, and I will go for 
one.’ And then, Andrew, we all started for the green 
room, lookin’ for all the world like a funeral persesshun — 
me first, then Mr. Roberts, with the mysterious stranger 
in his arms, and last Mr. Newcome for chief mourner, for 
all the world like this.” (A martial row of forks illus- 
trated the solemn tableau.) “When we got her on to the 
bed, she opened her eyes, looked at Mr. Roberts sorter 
bewildered like, then seemed to hunt round for Mr. 
Newcome. I wish you could heard him, Andrew, fairly 
cooing over her like a pigeon dove : ‘ I’m here, my little 
hero ! ’ says he, sorter sobbin’ out the words.” 


MRS. MASON^S VIEW OF THE CASE. 


47 


“ ‘ Hero-wine,’ I should say he said ; most probable,” 
said Andrew, who prided himself on his intellectual supe- 
riority to the imaginative Mrs. Mason. “ But how them two 
men, both of ’em on the spot, come to let that girl try to 
blow her brains out right here in as respectable a house 
as this, beats me. I ain’t had my doubts removed yet, 
Mrs. Mason, and a shootin’ affair, just ■ on the very spot 
where we laid down a bran new axminster last fall, 
wouldn’t a helped our reputations much.” 

“ I am not denying, Andrew,” said Mrs. Mason, ad- 
justing her forks contemplatively, “ that the thing do look 
a little curious and mysterious like, but I hope I know 
which side my own bread is buttered on, if you don’t, and 
if handsome young women persist in gettin’ hurt here, 
while I’m the only other woman about the premises, it 
ain’t me that’s going to throw all my own fat into the fire 
by peekin’ and spyin’ to find out what it all means.” 

“ Of course, of course,” said Andrew, vaguely assent- 
ing to this code of service ; “ but as we was saying about 
the heroine of the story — ” 

“ Maybe you know this story so well that I’m a wastin’ 
of my time tellin’ it,” said Mrs. Mason, cuttingly. 

“ Go on, go on. It’s as good as a story paper.” 

“Well, then, as / was sayin’, when you interrupted me 
so ungentleman, she looked from one to the other of them 
men, and finally lettin’ her eyes rest on Mr. Roberts, she 
said sorter faint like : ‘ Make him promise — for Bella’s 
sake.’ ‘ For Bella’s sake,’ Mr. Roberts says after her ; 
and I declare to goodness, Andrew, his voice got just as 
soft as if he was about to pray to the blessed Virgin her- 
self, and he made the old man say it after him too.” 


48 


T//A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ What in the nation does it all mean, though ? ” An- 
drew asked, irritably. 

“That’s more than it’s for me or you either to know. 
Just about that time Mr. Roberts sent me away to send 
you for the doctor, and when I went back the last time 
there was no talk except ’bout bandages and things. 
When Mr. Roberts was startin’ to leave, Mr. Newcome he 
calls after him, ‘ Don’t forget about the telegram.’ So the 
next thing I suppose we’ll have the whole family back on 
our hands, here in the dog-days, which is especially favor- 
able to gangrene, they tell me, and the Madam’s always 
cross in hot weather.” 

Mrs. Mason passed rapidly from narrative to complain, 
ing. 

“ Are we expected to sit up here all night ? ” Andrew 
asked, stretching his arms wearily over his head. I’m 
dead sleepy myself.” 

“ What for ? Dr. Houghton telephoned back for his 
own nurse, and she’s up-stairs now, and there ain’t nothing 
for nobody to do but to try to get a wink of sleep. That’s 
what I’m going to do.” 

“ Mason,” said Andrew, as they both rose to their feet, 
“ you mark my words, we ain’t seen the last of this dray- 
mer yet. I see complications ahead of us.” 

“ Well, see ’em,” said Mrs. Mason, rattling the silver 
back into the basket that always went to her own room with 
her when she retired, “ and move on too ; I want to lock 
up. I’ve seen more to-day than I ever expected to see 
under this roof.” 

And while Andrew moved on and she locked up, 
upstairs in his own room Mr. Newcome paced the 
floor restlessly, occasionally stealing across the hall to 


M/!S. MASON^S VIEW OF THE CASE. 


49 


look in upon Flo’s closed eyes and white cheeks, while 
he whispered some inquiry into the ear of the nurse, who 
sat like a sphinx by the bed’s head, betraying in her eyes 
neither interest nor curiosity nor sympathy beyond the 
professional limits of the case. 

And while Andrew moved on and Mrs. Mason locked 
up,. E. V. Roberts, the junior partner of the house of 
Newcome, Roberts & Co., walked back to his apartments 
from the telegraph office, pondering many things touching 
the occurrences of the night, conscious of two sources of 
thankfulness in the midst of it all. One was, that he had 
lurked in the vestibule, fearing some desperate proceed- 
ing on his partner’s part, and consequently had been in 
position to render efficient aid to his unstrung principal 
and that heroic girl ; the other was — that the sufferer was 
not — Bella. “ For Bella’s sake,” he repeated to himself 
softly. ‘‘Ah ! it is a name to conjure by and the smile 
that illumined his features at the thought converted him 
for the time being into a really handsome man. 

4 


CHAPTER V. 


MRS. NEWCOME’s goal. 

Mrs. Newcome was approaching a goal and as it was 
a goal towards which she had been laboring with fixed- 
ness of purpose and rigidness of determination for at 
least three years now, and, furthermore, as, unlike goals 
generally, this one loomed more splendidly attractive the 
nearer she approached it, small wonder that her whole 
soul was absorbed in contemplation of its dazzling desir- 
ability and in the few remaining steps on her own part 
which alone remained to be taken for securing it. 

One of those remaining steps had been taken on the 
very morning when a voluminous letter had arrived from 
Texas from Miss Dorsey’s mother, telling her friend Miss 
Newcome that she might expect the young lady herself in 
a few days. Under ordinary circumstances the wealth of 
the Dorseys’ and the claims of hospitality would have 
ensured Mrs. Newcome’s despatching her son and 
daughter to meet this ill-timed guest of theirs. But the 
letter found Mrs. Newcome at a point in her progress 
which would admit of no deflection ; she avoided argu- 
ment on general principles, and aware of Bella’s impul- 
sive affection for Miss Dorsey, she quietly concealed the 
news from Texas until her own judgment should approve 
of its disclosure. 

“ I am not going to have her fidgeting all day over the 

50 


MRS. NEWCOMB'S GOAL. 


51 


arrival of this little country girl,” Mrs. Newcome said in 
her most dictatorial manner to her son, who had been 
promptly let into the secret of Flo’s coming, “ I am 
especially anxious for her to look well to-night. All the 
rest of the girls here are fagged to death with dancing 
and riding and the dear knows what besides, while our 
Bella looks as fresh as a daisy in early spring ; don’t you 
think so, son ? ” 

She was industriously picking out the fluffy white lace 
flounces on an evening dress of Bella’s, smoothing a satin 
bow here, clipping the ends of one there, giving a more 
artistic twist to all of them, holding the pretty garment off 
at arm’s length every moment or two, to view it with the 
critical gravity a general in command might be expected 
to bestow on his ammunition before engaging in the fray. 

Mr. R. Algernon Newcome was sitting in the bay window 
of his mother’s private parlor that overlooked the water, 
and was apparently so absorbed in the beaCTty of the 
scene, made up as it was of a brilliant blue sky, flashing 
foaming breakers dashing on the beach, with innumerable 
picturesque sail-boats thrown in for effect, that he had 
paid very little attention to his mother’s monologue. It 
was only when she addressed him a point-blank question 
that he aroused himself sufficiently to turn his languid 
eyes backward over his trim shoulders to ask a repetition 
of her question. 

“ I asked you if you didn’t think Bella was looking very 
much fresher and younger than the Dodge girls or the 
Winslows or Miss Patterson or any of them here, in 
fact.” 

“ She is by long odds the handsomest girl here,” said 
Algernon, “ and I’d back her for staying powers in any 


52 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


race she’d enter.” Young Mr. Newcome’s affections 
were impartially bestowed upon his sister and the turf, the 
only two things he could really be called fond of ; conse- 
quently his horsey comparison was not meant for any dis- 
respect — quite the contrary. 

‘‘I am depending as much upon her dash as upon her 
staying powers in this race,” said Mrs. Newcome, placidly 
accepting the metaphor ; “ but I have been purposely 
keeping her quiet and retired up to this time. Anything 
but having a girl look as if she’d been out for half a cent- 
ury. She will look lovely to-night.^’ 

“ Any special call for trotting her out to-night ? ” Alger- 
non asked, taking note for the first time of the excessive 
pains his mother was bestowing on the filmy garment in 
her lap. 

“ The Pinkerton party arrived this morning and will be 
at the hop to-night. I must call before luncheon.” 

“ Oh ! I see ; the faded Miss Pinkertons are to act as 
foils to the fresh Miss Newcome.” 

“ Not at all. Mr. Ridgway is of the party, and the first 
thing he did this morning was to send his card and these 
lovely flowers to your sister, asking permission to act as 
her escort to-night. It was very prettily done.” 

“ Ridgway ! ” Mr. Newcome, junior, faced squarely 
around upon his mother for the first time. He had been 
flinging his remarks at her over his shoulders, as he 
smoked and stared out on the brilliant beach that was 
now gay with morning promenaders. “ The Honorable 
Percival Ridgway ? ” 

“ The Honorable Percival Ridgway.” His mother 
repeated the name with distinct emphasis, and looked at 
him over Bella’s lace flounces with that chilling stare in 


MRS. NEPVCOMM^S GOAL. 


53 


her beautiful eyes, and firm compression of her lips, that 
he had long since learned meant she was not to be 
moved from her position. 

“That isn’t your game, mother, surely ?” he said, almost 
anxiously. 

“ How coarse you are this morning, Algernon. What 
do you mean by my game ? ” She was altering the posi- 
tion of a bow, and patted it coaxingly while waiting for 
him to answer. 

“ I mean — you don’t mean to say you’ve been holding 
Bella in reserve for Ridgway ? ” 

“ What is the matter with ‘ Ridgway,’ if you will per- 
sist in curtailing his name so disrespectfully.” 

“ Which I ought not to do in common justice to the 
fellow, for the name he has inherited is pretty near about 
the only respectable thing about him,” he answered, 
scoffingly. 

“ Algernon ! ” 

“ Fact.” 

“ I don’t believe you. You are in a bad humor this 
morning about something, and it warps your sense of 
justice.” 

“ I am in a devil of a humor,” he answered, looking 
sourly off at the water again, “ but that doesn’t alter the 
fact that Ridgway is a cad.” He spat the word out con- 
temptuously. 

“ A cad. My dear son, the word conveys no idea at 
all to me. What is a cad ? I should like to know in 
order to show you how entirely inapplicable it is to Lord 
Rainsforth’s son.” 

“ A cad is a vulgar, low-bred, pretentious person. 
Ridgway is all three of them, and more besides — he’s 
positively disreputable.” 


54 


TJiAT GiRt FROM TEXAS. 


“ He is neither vulgar, low-bred, nor pretentious, and 
as your sister is foolishly inclined to take your opinion 
about young men in preference to mine, who certainly 
ought to have some judgment in the matter, I expressly 
desire you not to repeat any such views about Mr. 
Ridgway in her presence.” 

“ He hasn’t any sense,” Algernon contended, sulkily. 

“ Bella has quite enough for two.” Mrs. Newcome 
smiled at him across the flounces, but the look of obsti- 
nate resolution never once left her handsome face. 

Her son laughed harshly, and flinging the stump of his 
cigar into the open fire-place, got up and began pacing 
the floor in an ever narrowing circle about her chair. 
He stopped finally just behind her, with his hands laid 
upon her full, round shoulders. This early morning visit 
to his mother was not simply a filial duty. He had a 
petition to prefer, and he could not risk favor any further 
by fighting Bella’s battle. His voice changed suddenly 
from rude criticism to the most persuasive tones : 

“ How are you off for funds, mother ? Could you tide 
a fellow over a rough place for a day or two ? ” 

“ Tide you over ? ” Mrs. Newcome leaned back in her 
chair to look up into the weak, handsome face behind 
her. “ Algernon, don’t tell me you are out of money 
again.” 

“Well, I won’t, if I’m to be taken to task for it like a 
footman who has overdrawn his wages.” He removed 
his hands from her shoulders and sauntered moodily 
back to his place at the window, whistling discordantly. 

“ I am not taking you to task. I was simply wonder- 
struck. I am sure your father’s allowance to you, indi- 
vidually, seemed to be ample. Yes, more than ample.” 

“ How in the deuce is a woman to know what is ample 


MRS. NEWCOMERS GOAL. 


55 


or more than ample for a man ? If you want me to live 
on nothing, better turn me loose in Nebraska on a farm, 
and give me a team to plow with. I suppose if a fellow 
belongs to a certain set he must keep up with it or be 
kicked out of it. Just now my chances of being kicked 
out of it are better than good. Perhaps the Honorable 
Ridgway, second son of my Lord Rainsforth, might not 
fancy an alliance with a fellow that’s just been publicly 
disgraced, as I will be before to-morrow.” 

He slammed his hat on his head and left the room 
without another word. Mrs. Newcome sat with her eyes 
glued to the door he had banged after him so disrespect- 
fully, in a daze of surprise and agitation. 

What could the boy possibly mean ? Had he taken 
to drink ? This idea was so positively disgusting to 
her that she flung it away from her with a gesture of 
physical repulsion. That was a vice of the lower orders, 
and her son belonged, on both sides of the house, most 
emphatically to the highest orders. He had never 
shown her such disrespect before. She had seen 
him passionate and sulky oftentimes, but never like 
this. Indeed, she was afraid Algernon had inherited 
some very weak traits of character from some source or 
other ; but, as she kept repeating to herself, she had never 
seen him like this. What did he mean by saying he 
would be publicly disgraced before to-morrow ? How 
could her son be disgraced ? It was only people who 
stole or drank or committed murder and got themselves 
into jail by their clumsiness that could ever be disgraced 
— a Vanderhoof could do none of these things. He 
would come back presently more quiet, and then she 
would get it all out of him and help him if she could. 


TUA T GIRL FROM TEXAS, 


56 

It was very disagreeable to have such a scene occur jiist 
on this morning, when she had so much on her mind and on 
her hands. Once Bella was married off she must bestow 
more attention on Algernon’s goings and comingSi She 
hoped he was not forming any undesirable acquaintances* 
Young men, she supposed, must have a certain amount 
of liberty; but what a fearful thing it was to be a 
mother ! 

Mrs. Newcoiiie sighed heavily under the sense of her 
awful responsibility, and resumed work pensively upon 
Bella’s lace flounces. To-night matters would reach a 
crisis. Young Ridgway had evidently followed them up 
from the city. He was young and timid, and needed a 
pilot to steer him straight into the haven of matrimony. 
Mrs. Newcome was fully prepared to do the steering. 
She was glad Bella had not been present when Algernon 
had talked so maliciously about this young man. She 
was so easily turned against an admirer. She wished she 
could imagine what Algernon had meant by being dis- 
graced. Silly boy, to use words so recklessly and alarm 
her so causelessly. 

Her rather variegated reverie was broken in upon by a 
timid knock at the door, and her permission to enter gave 
ingress to a small atom of humajiity, who looked around 
in a startled fashion upon the elegant room and its ele- 
gant belongings, and at the elegant lady sitting there, tak- 
ing him in from head to foot with her piercing gray eyes. 
It was a barefooted boy, and the hat which he jerked 
from his head in alarmed haste at finding himself in the 
presence of this grand dame, was ragged in the 
extreme. 

“ What do you want, boy ? ” the lady asked, holding 


MI^S. //EtVC0M£*S GOAL. 


5; 

him with her great cold eyes in such a spell that his evi- 
dent uneasiness fell into his grimy little fingers and toes, 
and set them all to twitching at once. 

“ I don’t want nothin’,’’ he mustered the courage to 
say. 

“ But you do want something.” 

“ No’m, I don’t.” 

“ Didn’t you knock at my door } ” 

“ Yes’m.” 

“ What for ? ” 

“I was huntin’ for him, and that yeller feller down 
stairs tole me he was in here, an’ he didn’t do it fur 
nuthin’ but ter git me inter trubble. I don’t want nuthin’ 
at all, lady.” 

“ Who are you hunting for } ” Mrs. Newcome’s curi- 
osity was stimulated by the boy’s evident uneasiness. 

“ Swell Newcome.” 

“ ‘ Swell Newcome ! ’ You disgusting little wretch.” 

The disgusting little wretch shifted from one bare foot 
to the other and turned as if about to fly without further 
parley. 

“ Come here,” said Mrs. Newcome, so very imperatively 
that absolute obedience seemed the only thing left him in 
life. He slouched sulkily across the floor and stood just 
beyond the reach of Mrs. Newcome’s jewelled hand, 
which he eyed askance. It was evident that the disgust- 
ing little wretch did not think it improbable that a box 
on his ears was pending; but he was mistaken; it would 
have taken a great deal to induce Mrs. Newcome to lay 
her plump white hand on the small, wizened cheeks 
before her. She got up, however, and locked the door, 
then confronted her prisoner majestically. 


58 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ What do you want with Mr. Newcome ? ” 

That’s tellin’. I’ll get beat if I tell.” 

“ Who sent you to see him ? ^ 

“ A feller. I don’t know what’s his name.” 

“ Did he give you any note for my son } I am Mr. 
Newcome’s mother. You can leave it with me. I will 
see that he gets it.” 

“ He didn’t give me no note. I was to tell him — ” 
the boy stopped and eyed the lady anxiously. He was 
conscious of being between two fires ; the question was, 
which was the hottest ? Without quite approving of the 
course she was pursuing, Mrs. Newcome considered her- 
self justified in extracting as much as she could from this 
unsavory boy, in order to protect her son from some 
hidden peril. Opening her pocket-book, she took out a 
silver dollar and dropped it into the dingy little palm 
that was stretched out promptly and eagerly at sight of it. 

“ Now,” she said (her purchase of his modicum of 
honor completed), “you are to tell me just what you came 
here for, and no harm shall come to you for it ; but if you 
are obstinate and refuse, I will certainly have you pun- 
ished.” She looked quite capable of doing anything she 
had made up her mind to, and, after shifting from one 
foot to the other several times in mute distress, he stam- 
mered out with a whimper : 

“ T’other fellow tole me to go to Swell Newcome, 
and — ” 

“ Who is the other fellow ? ” 

“ I don’t know, ’m.” 

“ But you do.” 

“ Hope I may die and go to the bad man, if I do.” 
There was no disbelieving the earnestness of eye and 


M/^S. NEIVCOME^S GOAL. 


59 

voice that accompanied this awful invocation, so Mrs. 
Newcome waived that point, and said impatiently — 

“ Go on, go on ; ” which he did by going back. 

“ T’other feller tole me to go to Swell Newcome, and 
to say, when nobody else couldn’t hear me, ‘ Nine, ten, a 
good fat hen-pluck,’ and if that yeller feller downstairs 
hadn’t a fooled me, I was to git a quarter for doin’ of it 
quick and slick.” 

“What does that rubbish mean.?” Mrs. Newcome 
asked, with an expression of mixed disgust and bewilder- 
ment on her aristocratic features. 

“ Which, mum ? ” 

“ That nonsense about the hen ; what was the rig- 
marole .? Say it again, so I can give your message to my 
son.” 

“ Nine, ten, a good fat hen-pluck.” 

“ And that was all .? ” 

“ Yes, ’m, that’s all he tole me to say.” 

“ But what does it mean ? ” 

“ Hope I may die if I knows,” said the boy, who was 
recovering sufficiently from his awe of the lady and fright 
at his imprisonment to stuff his hands down into the 
ragged pockets of his trousers while he took a furtive sur- 
vey of the apartment. “ You won’t peach on me .? ” he 
said suddenly, lifting an anxious gaze to the lady’s face. 

“ Won’t do what ? ” 

“ Peach on me. I’ll git licked if you do.” 

“No, I shan’t tell on you. But who would whip you ? ” 

“ T’other feller.” 

“ Why didn’t he come himself to find my son ? ” 

The boy grinned, glanced about cautiously, and then 
ejected the one word : 


6o 


TMA T GIRL FROM TFXAS. 


“ Peelers ! ” 

“ Do you mean to say that the man who sent you with 
a message to my son was afraid of being arrested ? ” 

“ I say mebbe he was. I don’ know nuthin’ ’tall ’bout 
um.” 

“ What for ? Why should he be arrested } ” 

“ Hope I may die if I knows,” said the boy, returning 
to his favorite invocation. “You’ve done got all I 
knows out of me, and if it’s all the same to you, I’ll light 
out,” he added, picking his ragged cap up from the floor. 

It was “all the same” to Mrs. Newcome. She was 
convinced that the boy really had given her all the infor- 
mation he was possessed of himself, so she opened the 
door and watched him go out, very much as she might 
have watched a toad making its exit. 


CHAPTER VI. 


MORE PERPLEXITY FOR MRS. NEWCOME. 

The hop was in full blast, and Mrs. Newcome, seated 
among the dowagers, presented an outward appearance of 
bland satisfaction that was not warranted by the real 
state of affairs. Her maternal breast was torn in twain, 
and those ridiculous words about that good fat hen had 
set themselves like a monotonous refrain to the triumphal 
march of Bella’s dazzling success. Certainly in that 
direction nothing could be working smoother — Bella had 
never looked more beautiful, and Lord Rainsforth’s son 
had simply been as her shadow all the evening. She 
hoped Mr. Newcome would give her some credit for being 
a good manager after their only daughter should have 
become settled into one of the oldest families in England. 
Algernon was furnishing the alloy for the occasion. He 
was certainly acting in the most incomprehensible way. 
He, who was almost as ornamental in the ball-room as 
his sister, had scarcely been visible the entire evening. 
True, he had seen his mother to the ball-room ; but with a 
hurried promise to look in on her again presently, he had 
disappeared. But he had not looked in on her again, and 
it sickened her to think that perhaps at this very moment 
he was closeted in some “ disreputable hole ” with the 
sender of that disreputable messenger boy. Into her 
reflections on Algernon’s mysterious conduct and Bella’s 

6l 


62 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


decided triumph and the evident discomfort of some 
others who had held their best in abeyance for Lord 
Rainsforth’s son, a waiter belonging to the hotel thrust 
an ugly telegram. 

For you, ma’am,” he said, and waited to see if there 
was any answer. 

Mrs. Newcome tore the envelope off raggedly. l7 
there was anything disagreeable in it she wanted to mas- 
ter its contents before the Honorable Ridgway should 
bring Bella back to her side. It was only Mr. Roberts’ 
telegram, however, saying that Miss Dorsey, who had ar- 
rived, in the city that morning, had been so unfortunate 
as to meet with a slight accident, and Mr. Newcome 
hoped she (Mrs. Newcome) would not object to coming 
up to the city to see after their young guest. 

“This is too much,” Mrs. Newcome muttered, crush- 
ing the telegram into her pocket and flushing redly under 
her rouge. 

“ No bad news from poor dear Mr. Newcome, I hope,” 
said Mrs. Warner, who was sitting by her, slowly waving 
a fan of monstrous proportions. 

Mrs. Warner’s inquiries always had a peculiarly irritat- 
ing effect on Mrs. Newcome’s nerves, and she wondered 
why the woman could never make the slightest inquiry 
about Mr. Newcome, without calling him “ poor dear Mr. 
Newcome.” 

“No,” she answered, a trifle tartly, “nothing but a 
small affair concerning myself only. Mr. Newcome is 
quite well, thank you; he enjoys perfect health. So good 
of you to inquire.” 

“ Any answer, ma’am ? ” the messenger asked, still wait- 
ing the lady’s pleasure, 


MORE PERPLEXITY FOR MRS. NEWCOME. 63 

Thank you ; no answer.” No menial ever had cause 
to complain of lack of courtesy on Mrs. Newcome’s part. 
It was only to her social equals or to whomever would pre- 
sumptously array themselves against her in any manner 
whatever, that she showed the superciliousness which 
made her handsome face so disagreeable in its haugh- 
tiness. “ Ah, yes ; waiter ; ” she recalled the man with a 
gracious smile ; “ perhaps you have seen my son, Mr. 
Newcome ? ” 

“ Mr. R. Algernon, ma’am ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I did see him out on the piazza a while back, but 
whether he’s there now or not I can’t say. Shall I tell 
him you want him, m’am ? ” 

“ No, I will go out there to him.” 

Mrs. Newcome extricated herself and her long train 
from the other dowagers and their long trains, as she 
rose from the ranks of the wallflowers. 

“ If Bella should come back while I am out of the 
room, please consider her under your wing, dear Mrs. 
Stephens,”' she said, looking directly over Mrs. Warner’s 
head to make the request ; and then she passed out 
through the nearest door to look for Algernon among the 
loungers on the immense piazza. 

It was cool and pleasantly dark out there, coming as 
she had from the heat and glare of the over-crowded 
drawing-rooms. There were couples promenading, 
couples resting from the exertion of dancing in hot 
weather, and still other couples cynically disposed to 
laugh at anyone for such unreasonable exertion in the 
pursuit of pleasure. They besprinkled the broad 
space pretty thickly, and wherever she caught a glimpse 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


64 

of an unusually rich toilet or pretty face, she scanned 
the accompanying escort closely, for Mrs. Newcome 
was deplorably short-sighted. Where should she 
look for her son if not in company with the pretty 
women of his own set? But she passed group after 
group without finding herself any nearer the object of her 
desire, which was to find Algernon and make him a recip- 
ient of the latest news from home. She would not spoil 
the evening for Bella, but as Algernon did not seem to 
be taking any pleasure in it anyway, there would be 
no harm in consulting with him as to what they should 
do about Florine Dorsey. 

She was quite sure she had scanned every face 
on the piazza. Algernon had doubtless gone back into 
the ball-room by this time, and was looking for her. It 
was cool here — she would get the benefit of it before 
going back. She seated herself, with her back to the 
house, and stared off over the lighted lawns with 
the listless gaze of a person who has no interest what- 
ever in the object upon which her gaze was resting. 
Her chair was quite a little way from any of the people 
about her. It was comparatively quiet there, so quiet 
that she started presently at the sound of a deep-drawn 
sigh close to where she sat. She leaned back in her 
chair to discover, if possible, where the sigh came from. 

Just on the other side of the pillar, which was quite large 
enough to hide them from each other, she saw a man sit- 
ting. His elbows were resting on the balustrade in front 
of him, and his chin was supported in his open palm. 
His hat was drawn so far down over his eyes that she 
could see nothing of his face, even if she had cared to, 
which she certainly did not. Human suffering, in the 


MOA'ji rEi<rLA:xiry for airs, neivcoa/e. 65 

abstract, had rather a repelling effect on Mrs. Newcome, 
and she gave only a passing thought with that one fleeting 
glance at the man in the chair before rising to move on, 
full of disgust and displeasure at the thought, of such 
close proximity to a drunkard. 

“ They pretend this hotel is meant to be desperately 
exclusive,” she was thinking angrily, “but any creature, 
even if he’s half tipsy, it would seem, can get in. I’m 
sure there is nothing else the matter with this man.” 
Her movements were impeded by the catching of her 
long train under the chair leg. She stooped to disentangle 
it, and when she rose again another man had appeared 
suddenly and was standing over the sitter whose heavy 
sigh had betrayed him to her. 

“ I can do nothing for you to-night. You may as well 
try to get blood out of a turnip. You can kill me, as you 
threatened to do, if that will mend matters, but you can’t 
get any money out of me.” 

Surely that was Algernon’s voice. It sounded husky 
from agitation, and the words were desperate, but none 
the less the second comer was assuredly her own son. 
She held her breath to hear more. The man in the chair 
rose suddenly and said in a fierce undertone : “ This is 
no place to talk ; come down under the trees with me. 
You needn’t be afraid ” — seeing Algernon Ijesitate — 
“ pretty little fool, she’s gone away long since.” 

With a ghastly laugh he turned and left the piazza, 
closely followed by young Newcome. 

Mrs. Newcome fell back into the chair she had just 
vacated, in a tumult of feeling altogether uncomfortable. 
Should she follow them and insist upon an explanation 
from her son ? That would be simply to make him ridic- 
5 


66 


T//A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


ulous. Who was the “ pretty fool ” who had gone away 
long since ? What was Algernon coming to ? What was 
this urgent need of money, and who was the man that 
seemed tq, have him in his clutches so firmly, that his voice 
absolutely trembled with agitation because he could not 
do his bidding ? 

It was a terrible revelation to his mother, but even 
in that startling moment no self-reproach mingled 
with her meanings. To think that a son of hers should 
be hovering on the brink of disgrace, and she only to 
find it out in this accidental fashion ! As carefully 
as he had been reared, too, and with such a family 
record as he had behind him ! Whenever was a Van- 
derhoof known to leave the faintest taint of dishonor 
on the family escutcheon ? And was not his father^s 
family just as good, perhaps ? Mrs. Newcome rarely con- 
ceded that the Newcome blood was quite as good as the 
Vanderhoof. The Vanderhoofs were almost as old as 
Manhattan Island itself, and it was honor enough for the 
most aspiring to have one drop of Vanderhoof blood in 
one’s veins. 

The thought of her ancestors always had a soothing 
effect on Mrs. Newcome. It seemed simply impossible, 
you know, that one of them could go very far astray. 
Perhaps, after all, her mother’s heart was exaggerating 
the scene that had fallen under her observation. Doubt- 
less Algernon was anxious to help some boon com- 
panion out of a scrape. Young men would fall into 
trouble, occasionally, especially young men whose home 
influence was not just what it should be. She hoped her 
son would never be tempted through any remissness or 
failure on her part. She wished her eyesight was a little 


MORE PERPLEXITY FOR MRS. NEWCOME. 6 / 

better ; she might, by looking over the balustrade, see her 
boy and the man who had seemed to speak to him with 
such unwarrantable asperity. She leaned over the balus- 
trade to make the effort and was rewarded, for the effort 
at least. 

There almost immediately under where she was 
standing, were her son and the stranger, pacing to and 
fro in a reckless fashion. Algernon with his arms folded 
and his head drooping despondently, the other man doing 
all the talking, and doing it very volubly, too, with an 
occasional violent gesture, that betrayed anger or some 
other emotion of an extreme sort. Beyond them were the 
flash of electric lights, and the blare of brass bands and 
the trampling of many feet, and the laughter of a multi- 
tude of voices — voices that drowned the talk of the 
two walking there in such earnest conclave. 

Presently a girlish form separated itself from the motley 
group under the trees and walked with a quick, determined 
step to where the two men were talking. She stopped with 
folded hands in front of young Newcome. He raised his 
head with a start. The other man laughed coarsely, and 
turning on his heel, left the two together. The girl slipped 
her arm into that of the young man, said something to 
him that he obeyed with the utmost docility, and together 
they disappeared from the sight of the trembling woman 
on the piazza overhead. 

There was nothing to keep Mrs. Newcome any longer 
at her post. She would go back to the ball-room before 
Bella should get to wondering over her absence. Her 
cheeks were on fire with indignation and wounded 
pride. She was quite sure she showed many signs of 
the tumult that had full possession of her soul. She 


68 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


would slip into her own room and cool her cheeks with a 
little ice-water. She did not think that ten minutes had 
elapsed from the time of her leaving the piazza until she 
returned to the ball-room, but when she did she had to 
stop and pass her hand over her eyes to make sure that 
she was not the victim of an optical illusion. 

There, whirling in the maze of the waltz, with the most 
fastidious girl in the room in his close embrace, was 
Algernon, her son, his face as free from any sign of 
trouble or perplexity as the marble slioulder of his 
partner, so close under his long, fair moustache. Mrs. 
Newcome heaved a sigh of immense relief. How stupid 
she had been to be misled by a chance resemblance in 
voices into misjudging her dear boy so cruelly ! She 
smiled at the memory of the acute spasm of jealousy 
she had wasted on that “pretty fool” part of the 
business. How unreasonable people were apt to be- 
come, especially mothers who were so much wrapped up 
in their children as she was ! 

The revulsion from anxiety to relief was so great that 
she felt absolutely joyous, and she made her way back to 
her seat prepared to beam even on Mrs. Warner, if that 
lady would let her. One glance satisfied her that Bella 
was holding her own against the assembled beauty and 
fashion of Newport, and she awarded herself on the spot 
all the honors that should accrue to a mother for un- 
selfish devotion to the best interests of her children. 

“Young Ridgway waltzes well,” she said, blandly, 
addressing her remark amiably to Mrs. Warner. 

“ By the law of compensation he ought to do something 
well,” said Mrs. Warner, levelling her eye-glass on the 


MOM£ PERPLEXITY FOR MRS. NEJVCOME. 69 

whirling couples. “ He has been denied almost every 
other capacity, I am informed. They say he is really al- 
most deficient.” 

‘^I believe, in this country, if a young man neither 
smokes, nor drinks, nor talks horse or club, he is con- 
sidered somewhat deficient,” Mrs. Newcome replied, not 
unmindful of the fact that Mrs. Warner’s own sons were 
shining exponents of those manly accomplishments ; “ but 
I would be quite content to have a son just like Lord 
Rainsforth in every respect.” 

“ Or son-in-law ? ” said Mrs. Warner, smiling sweetly 
into the other lady’s face. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE. 

It was between the late hours of one and two in the 
morning that 3^oung Newcome turned away from the 
door of his mother’s room, relieved, finally, of the social 
duties that had sat so heavily upon him all the evening. 
He left Bella and his mother reviewing the events of the 
evening, as women will do when they’ve had a glorious 
time, in spite of deadly fatigue and tired nature’s clam- 
orous demand for slumber, while he walked rapidly out 
toward the deserted beach, where the ^surf moaned and 
sighed against its rocky barriers in dismal solitude. 

He walked rapidly, like a man with a fixed destination 
ahead of him, towards which he was hurrying under pressure 
of some tremendous excitement. With his hat swinging 
in one hand and his light evening coat giving his unpro- 
tected chest to the chilling night air, he still seemed to 
suffer with oppression, for the only halt he made in his 
rapid walking was to pass his handkerchief over his head 
and temples. Faster and still faster he went until he 
reached an obscure lodging-house far away from that part 
of Newport where his mother and sister held social sway 
in the best circles. 

He had never been in the neighborhood of this 
dingy lodging-house before, and it was certainly not by 
his own choice that he was here now. He stopped 

70 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE. 


71 


irresolutely in front of the darkened building. Perhaps 
after all he need not have been so punctilious about 
keeping this engagement. He had promised to come as 
soon as he was foot-loose, but doubtless sleep had over- 
taken the man he had made the promise to ; and he 
should very much like to sleep on the matter. He had 
been pushed pretty hard to-day and didn’t feel as clear- 
headed as he would like to feel. Inclination voted 
strongly in favor of retreat. 

“ Is that you, Newcome ? Step around to the east 
wing and I’ll come down and let you in. I’m devilish 
tired of waiting for you.” 

These words came to him from behind the closed 
shutters of a second-story front room. There was no use 
debating any longer. He must go in, and, furthermore, 
he must not let this man see how unnerved and unstrung: 
the day’s proceedings had left him. 

He walked slowly around to the east wing, like one 
under some inexorable necessity. All the excited speed 
of his former gait had deserted him. The man was 
waiting for him at the eastern door, and he followed him 
without any further greeting up to the room on the sec- 
ond story, where the gas was still burning brightly, and 
where he dropped into a chair by the centre-table, on 
which stood a pitcher of iced water that he seized eagerly. 

“ You are as pale as a frightened girl,” said his host, 
looking him rudely over from head to foot, “ and as 
fragile as a lily. I believe I could blow you over with one 
strong breath. Have you come ready for work ? ” 

“ I’ve been walking pretty fast and feel a trifle blown,” 
said Algernon, laughing with a ghastly assumption of 
ease, as he passed his handkerchief over his damp fore- 


72 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


head. “ The cold night air blowing off the sea does 
make a iellow feel shivery, especially if he isn’t allowed 
time to get out of ball-room rig before facing it. This 
has been a devil of a night,” he added, desperately, 
“ what with your pushing a fellow to the wall in this 
fashion and this infernal hop to be seen through with 
on my mother’s account.” 

“ If you had come when I first sent for you this morn- 
ing you wouldn’t have been pushed so hard. But when 
a man tries to slip me I’ll get even with him or pull the 
house down about his ears in the effort. If it has been 
a devil of a night to you, what sort of a day do you sup- 
pose it has been to me, shut up in this accursed sweat- 
box like a rat in a trap all day ? ” He looked darkly 
across the table at Algernon. 

“ How was I to know you were here ? And what do 
you mean by my trying to slip you ? ” 

“ The understanding was that you were to come when- 
ever I sent you word that there was a hen to be plucked, 
and after you paid my* messenger a dollar for bringing 
you the message by which you knew I would expect you 
between nine and ten to-night, you let me wait until I’m 
compelled to prowl around and fish you out from among 
a lot of petticoats and satin slippers.” 

“ I never saw your messenger, and you had best leave 
my lady acquaintances out of this conversation. I’ve no 
notion of slipping you, but I’ve found out long since that 
you are something of an alarmist. Where’s the hitch 
now ? ” 

His assumed composure acted disastrously upon the 
other man. 

“ I tell you, Newcome,” and here the papers on the 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE. 


73 


table l3etween the two men vibrated under the vehement 
blows of his clenched fist, “you don’t seem to have the 
sense to realize your own danger. If we’re not already 
found out, we’re so near it that it’s as much as your 
freedom or mine either is worth for us to put our feet 
in New York city to-morrow, unless those coupons are 
provided for.” 

Algernon laughed scornfully : “ You’ve got a big 

scare on you, haven’t you ? I do recognize that we are 
in a very ticklish place, but it’s not as bad as all that.” 

He leaned forward and selecting a cigar from the box 
on the table, lighted it at the drop light that hung low 
over his head, drawing at it slowly and deliberately. 

His companion gritted his teeth in impotent rage. The 
face that the drop light gave to his angry inspection was 
so deplorably weak — what was there in it to build a hope 
upon in this frightful emergency 1 His moody eyes 
travelled from the narrow white forehead, slightly reced- 
ing, down to the almost effeminately small mouth, suck- 
ing vigorously at the cigar, without discovering one trace 
of will-power. It was a refined and a delicately hand- 
some face, but the mouth, from which the long, fair 
moustache drooped with such cultivated grace, and the 
fine eyes that were just now giving him back smiling 
bravado for his angry inspection, had more in them to 
please a girl’s ardent fancy than to comfort a desperate 
man in a dangerous predicament. 

“ May I ask you,” he said at last, with biting sarcasm, 
“ the source of your marvellous serenity As we are 
both in the same boat I’d like to draw comfort from the 
same source if possible.” 

“ There’s not much comfort to be drawn from any 


74 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


source, unless from Adolphe Neuman. But you’ve tried 
that scarey dodge with me once too often, Benedick. If, 
as you say, the ‘jig’s up,’ there’s expatriation, the worthy 
but unfortunate citizen’s final recourse under embarrass- 
ing circumstances like the present.” 

“ You are a fool, Newcome. Neuman has us both too 
tight in his clutches for that already. Don’t you know 
enough to know that forgery comes under the extradition 
treaty t ” 

Algernon turned ghastly pale ; the hand tjiat held his 
cigar trembled visibly. 

“ If the worst comes to the worst,” he said, finally, 
“ poor old father will have to see us through.” 

“ It won’t be in his power. It would be condoning a 
crime.” 

“ Or Roberts — his junior ” — said Algernon, grasping 
at another straw. 

“ Roberts ! ” the other man laughed recklessly ; “ he’d 
help hang his own brother if he thought he deserved hang- 
ing. The most uncompromising man in New York city. 
A perfect Brutus.” 

“He is in love with my sister,” said Newcome, “and a 
man in love isn’t going to help bring the whole family he 
is going to enter down into the mire.” 

The other man stamped and swore in the extremity of 
his wrath. “ To think,” he said, when he could artic- 
ulate for fury, “ that I should ever have entrusted my- 
self in a venture of this sort with a puling sentimentalist. 
I tell you, young man, that the devil himself can’t save 
us if that money isn’t forthcoming within twenty-four 
hours. And here you sit maundering on about your 
papa and your sister’s lover. Curse such twaddle.” 


T//E ONLY LOOPHOLE. 


75 


“ Well, then, if things are as desperate as you repre- 
sent, we might as well stop talking. For I tell you what 
I have told you once before this night, that you may kill 
me if that will mend matters, but you can’t get that money 
out of me. I’ve exhausted every possible avenue. Neu- 
man must wait.” 

“ By George, you carry it off in masterful style. I 
hope you’ll be able to do more with Neuman than I’ve 
done.” 

“ When did you see him } ” 

“ This morning.” 

“ Where ? ” 

Here.” 

“ Neuman here in Newport ? ” The aristocratic feat- 
ures that Mrs. Newcome’s son inherited from the Vander- 
hoofs twitched convulsively. 

His companion laughed coarsely : “ He’s been here 

more than a week. He escorted his sister here.” 

A profound silence pervaded the room for several 
moments. It was broken by Newcome. “ Benedick,” 
he said, fixing the other man with a passionate look^ 
“ curse me if I don’t believe you are playing into Neu- 
man’s hands.” 

“Then you are even a bigger fool than I took you 
for.” 

Their plight was far too desperate for either party to 
stand on a few rough words, so Algernon, without taking 
any apparent notice of his companion’s brutal response, 
asked anxiously : 

“ What is Neuman driving us so hard for ? He’s not in 
need of money.” 

“ Can’t you guess ? ” 


76 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ I cannot.” 

You are either an awfully innocent or an infernally 
deep ’un. I wonder which it is ? ” 

“ How came you to know before I did that Adolphe 
Neuman was here? ” 

“ Because I don’t move in such aristocratic circles that 
I can’t see who is on the public promenade, or under the 
trees on the beach with the herd. Neuman has made no 
secret of his presence here. You know his sister has a 
swell cottage here.” O 

“ No!” 

“She is in bad health. Scarcely ever leaves the 
house. She’s a beautiful woman.” 

“ I agree with you.” 

“ And a good one. She is the apple of Adolphe’s eye. 
They say if she cried for the moon it would go hard with 
him but what she should have it. I believe you know 
her.” 

“ Yes, she’s a nice little girl. Plays well. Neuman gives 
good suppers. I’ve enjoyed both. Pity she’s a dentist’s 
daughter. It’s about the only flaw in a gem of otherwise 
purest ray serene,” said the descendant of the Vander- 
hoofs, pulling his moustache out to its full extent and 
examining the tips of it with a critical downward look, as 
he added, “ I wish her brother would expend some of his 
surplus tenderness on us.” 

“ Confound your assurance ! ” Benedick’s wrath rose 
in inverse ratio to Newcome’s well-assumed composure. 
“It will need more than a blond moustache and a 
long pedigree to help you if we once get into Ludlow ; 
and Neuman is the one that can put us there.” 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE. 


77 


Algernon shivered as if a cold blast of wind had come 
in contact with his aristocratic spine. 

“ What’s the use of being brutal ? ” he asked, resent- 
fully. 

“ Better be ‘brutal,’ as you call it, now, than wait until 
the last door of escape is closed.” 

“ It is already closed, so far as I can see,” said New- 
come, sullenly. 

“ No ; there is one way out of this accursed scrape, 
and only one.” 

“ And that is — ” 

Benedick felt in the inside pocket of his coat and 
brought out a letter. “I will read you Neuman’s ultima- 
tum, or perhaps you would prefer reading it yourself } ” 

Algernon held out an unsteady hand for the open 
letter. He kept it long enough to read a dozen of the 
same length. Benedick, watching him closely, saw dis- 
gust, dismay, consternation, fear, irresolution, and repul- 
sion chase each other across his almost boyish features 
in rapid succession. 

“ I’ll be jailed before I will,” he said, finally, dashing 
the letter back across the table with a passionate gesture, 
while all the blood of all the Vanderhoofs mounted to his 
temples. 

“ That is your ultimatum, then, is it ? ” Benedick asked, 
folding the paper up with icy deliberation. “ I am to tell 
Neuman that you prefer Sing Sing to the terms of settle- 
ment proposed in this,” tapping the paper with a coarse 
forefinger ; “ that you prefer disgracing your entire family 
to putting your aristocratic signature at the bottom of 
any such document. Hey, is that the message I’m to 
deliver ? ” 


78 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ I want a little time to think it over,” said Algernon, 
making a desperate effort to recover his shattered com- 
posure. “ You are springing a mine on me.” 

“ There is no necessity for prolonging the agony. 
Neuman demands your signature within twenty-four 
hours, or his will be affixed to an affidavit. Affidavits are 
ugly things, Newcome — very ugly. Blood is a great 
thing, Newcome, a great thing ; but the air of the peniten - 
tiary is fatal to the best strain. Pity to spoil the New- 
come strain.” 

His tortured listener leaned heavily against the table, 
supporting his head in his clasped hands. He looked up 
now with gloom in his young eyes, stretching a trembling 
hand across for the paper. “ Give me back the letter. 
Let me read it again.” 

Benedick flung it back across the table, while a gleam 
of hope flashed into his own sullen face. “ A body would 
think it was written in Hebrew,” he said, presently, tired 
of staring across the table at Algernon’s pallid face and 
writhing -features. 

“It is written in Hebrew,” Newcome said, bitterly, 
“ in Shylock Hebrew.” 

“We’d better get Neuman to translate. As for me,” 
he continued, yawning conspicuously, “ I don’t pretend to 
say I’ve got as much at stake as you have. There’s no 
father with a spotless commercial record to be brought 
into the dirt by my exposure ; there’s no mother prouder 
than Lucifer to be made to eat humble pie on account of 
my rascalities ; there’s no young sister to hang her head 
in shame for my disgrace. With me it will be only a 
dropping out of the ranks of people that don’t care a 
curse for me at the best. My coming to grief won’t cost 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE, 


79 


one tear or produce one ripple. So I’m ready to sign or 
leave unsigned to suit my swell partner. I won’t go back 
on Algie, hang me if I do.” 

Algernon was past resenting insult. He raised a face 
suddenly grown old and haggard, reached out a trembling 
hand for a pen, and dipping it into the ink-stand, held it 
suspended over the paper to ask : 

“ May I insert one proviso ? ” 

“Hold on; my powers are not plenipotentiary. 
Wait.” 

Suddenly leaving his chair, he went out into the cor- 
ridor, and Algernon could hear him descending the stairs. 
He sat there alone for what seemed to him an eternity of 
misery, shame, and remorse. Long enough to review in a 
torturing reverie the first mistaken steps to which this 
fatal night was but a natural sequence ; long enough to 
project his perturbed fancy into the future, and to picture 
to himself the condition of his own home circle after the 
fruits of his wrong-doing should become known ; long 
enough to wonder for one wild second if death would 
not, after all, be the easiest way out of the mess. He 
heard Benedick coming back up the corridor. Some one 
was with him. When they got to the door they came to 
a halt, and he heard Benedick say : 

“ I don’t see as it is necessary for me to sit up to see it 
through. I can do nothing to bring matters to a climax. 
I’m dead sleepy. He’s in there. Good-night.” 

Algernon glanced around as the door opened, and 
Adolphe Neuman came towards the table and seated 
himself in the chair vacated by Benedick. It was a 
relief almost to Newcome to look into the handsome face 
of his creditor and listen to the low, cultivated tones of 


8o 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


his well modulated voice, both were in such sharp and 
agreeable contrast to the sneering face and brutal ill- 
breeding of his companion in guilt. 

“ I cannot sign that paper, Mr. Neuman,” Algernon 
said, pushing the paper away from him with a motion of 
disgust. The broker picked it up and folding it in a 
small compass closed his long brown fingers about it, 
calmly tearing it into ribbons as he answered : 

“ I did not suppose that you would. In fact, if pos- 
sible, I would have had a poorer opinion of you than I 
now have. I wrote that to bind Benedick. His signa- 
ture is already affixed to a copy of it. For you I have 
another proposition. Perhaps it will prove even more 
distasteful to you than this one,” scattering the torn frag- 
ments of the agreement with his fingers in the waste- 
basket under the table. 

“ Impossible ! ” 

“You are very young, Mr. Newcome, to have become 
involved in such a guilty proceeding. I take it for 
granted Mr. Benedick has given you fully to understand 
the peril you are in.” 

“ Fully,” said the boy, in a choking voice. 

“ I suppose you know that you are absolutely in my 
power } ” 

“ Yes, I know that, too.” 

“ Money-lenders, you know, are considered by your 
class ” — with infinitely contemptuous emphasis on the 
word class — “ to be universally devoid of any of the 
purely humane traits of character, such as generosity, 
magnanimity, unselfishness, affection, and such soft emo- 
tions. You know them in your circle of society simply as 
monetary conveniences. That a money-lender can have 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE. 


8l 


a heart to feel the sorrows of others or be impelled to a 
sacrifice for the sake of one dearer than himself would 
perhaps strike you as a freak of nature — something not to 
be accounted for by the ordinary rules that apply to him.” 

“ Not at all, not at all,” Algernon stammered, insin- 
cerely, anxious to stultify himself for the sake of possible 
gain at the hands of his handsome creditor. 

“ In fact it sometimes affords pastime to young gentle- 
men of your exalted social position to play upon the affec- 
tions of silly young girls whose lives have barely touched 
the magic line of the best circle, only occasionally when 
the best circle lends itself to charitable entertainments 
and stoops to borrow the talent and accomplishment of 
one of the inferior race.” 

Algernon’s face was dyed the deepest crimson, but he 
affected ignorance of the broker’s meaning. 

“ I don’t understand you,” he said, dropping his eyes 
before the cold, calm gaze of the lustrous pair that met 
them. 

“You do,” said Neuman, with severe directness, “ or 
if you do not, you shall. When the ladies gave their 
grand charity entertainment at the Opera House here, 
last year. Miss Rose Neuman was asked to contribute her 
fine singing, and did it. It is for you to say whether you 
did or did not pursue her with your attentions afterward 
— lover-like attentions of the most assiduous sort, from 
that moment up to within a few months past, when it 
pleased you to drop her and take up a fresh toy. Per- 
haps such proceedings are quite the thing in your circle. 

“I have been both shocked and surprised to find 
how deep an impression your gallantry has made on a 
girl who is so simple-hearted and guileless as to attribute 
6 


82 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


honorable meaning to words that were as absolutely hol- 
low and worthless as the man who spoke them to her. 
Naturally you do not relish such plain talk. This is an 
occasion which admits of no other sort.” He leaned 
back in his chair, fastening his flashing black eyes on the 
youth opposite him. “I have an alternative for you. It 
passes my comprehension what my sister Rose can see in 
you to inspire her with such ardent affection, but when I 
see her health absolutely giving away before the force of 
her chagrin and disappointment, I, who love her beyond 
anything, am naturally inspired with a desire to throttle 
the man who has broken up the peace of my home. 
Women are such contrary creatures, however, that to 
punish you would be only to win my sister’s undying 
resentment. For myself, I don’t propose that Rose shall 
wear herself to a shadow wanting anything that it is in 
my power to give her.” 

“And you propose” — said Algernon, almost gasping 
the words out in his consternation. 

“ To give her you,” said Mr. Neuman, showing his 
fine white teeth in an unpleasant sort of a smile. “ If I 
had been given a choice in the matter of a husband for 
my sister, it would certainly have been a very different 
sort of a man from yourself. As it is ” — he carefully 
selected another paper from his pocket — “you will kindly 
affix your signature to this.” He laid it down on the 
table before Algernon. It was very short. 

“ This is the only thing you will agree to ? ” the young 
man asked, huskily, looking up from the paper into his 
creditor’s handsome, determined face with an almost im- 
ploring look. 

“ The alternative is the paper I destroyed.” Dipping 


THE ONLY LOOPHOLE. 


83 


the pen afresh into the ink-bottle, he leaned across the 
table and put it into Algernon’s fingers. “ Sign.” His 
voice was full of suppressed fury, his face was dark with 
resolution. He was not to be trifled with. 

“ One condition ? ” It was a plea uttered in the voice 
of a conquered suppliant. 

“ Secrecy, I suppose,” Neuman said, with a curling lip. 

“Yes, until — ” he could not finish the sentence that 
was to bring his sister Bella’s name into this unholy 
atmosphere. 

“Until,” said Neuman, composedly finishing the sen- 
tence for him, “Lord Rainsforth’s son and Miss Newcome 
are indissolubly bound to each other. The marriage shall 
remain a secret or not ^t my sister’s discretion.” 

“ And is to take place when ? ” 

“ That I shall also leave to Rose.” 

“ Ruin either way ! ” It was Algernon who uttered 
that cry of desperation, and seizing his pen wrote his 
name in an almost illegible scrawl. 

“ My poor mother,” he groaned, flinging the pen from 
him after the deed was done. 

“ My poor Rose,” said Neuman, pressing the blotter 
over the scrawled signature. “ It is an unclean mess all 
around, but I propose to keep it as clean as possible for 
Rose. She knows nothing whatsoever about this per- 
formance on my part. I have been buying toys f8r her 
ever since she was left on my hands a little orphan child. 
I have bought her another one. Much good may she 
extract from it, but as you value your own safety, I fore- 
warn you against any trifling in this matter. Perhaps 
now we may as well say good-night to each other, or 
rather, good-morning, brother-in-law.” 


84 


Til A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


Broad beams of light were already slanting through the 
shutters. Algernon flung his hat on his head and 
rushed from the house, intent only on reaching his own 
room before anyone he knew should be astir. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ROSE NEUMAN. 

When Adolphe Neuman entered the breakfast-room of 
his own handsome cottage the next morning it was to find 
his sister Rose there before him. 

She was standing in the bay window attending to the 
wants of a cage family of pets that awaited her pleasure 
with the dignified composure of animals who were sure 
of never being neglected. The gilded cage of her canary 
bird, that swung high up among the clinging tendrils of a 
Japan honeysuckle, was at that moment occupying all 
her attention. She heard x\dolphe enter, but did not 
turn her head or come, as usual, to greet him with a 
smile and a kiss. 

‘‘ Good morning. Rose,” her brother said, by way of 
commanding his share of attention ; but as her gentle 
“ Good morning, brother,” came to him over her shoulder, 
and her face was still kept turned away from him, he 
moved into his place at the breakfast-table and spread- 
ing open the morning paper pretended to be reading it, 
while in reality he was watching her with jealous scru- 
tiny. 

He knew by her studious avoidance of his eye that she 
had been crying again. It was no uncommon thing now 
to detect signs of tears on her pretty face. How thin 
her arms looked, stretched upward, with the loose lace- 


86 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


trimmed sleeves of her wrapper falling away from them ! 
And the cheek that was turned slightly towards him was 
not the smooth round cheek it had been up to a very little 
while ago. 

He had done that which he believed would bring back 
health and happiness to her. But at what a tremendous 
sacrifice to himself. Rose, once married to a Newcome, 
would be lost to him and to her own people. Well, nD 
matter, so she was happy. 

He defied Newcome to show more beauty or intelli- 
gence in any woman of his own set than Rose would 
carry into it. The only marvel was, what she could see 
in him ; ah, well, a girl’s fancy, he supposed, was not to 
be gauged by his own cold calculations. He had sworn to 
his mother on her death-bed that he would never leave 
undone anything that lay in his power to secure this 
child’s happiness. Newcome was in his power, and if 
that was the plaything Rose craved, she should have it, 
that was all. 

“I don’t want to hurry you, Rose,” he said, presently, 
“ but are we to have any breakfast this morning ? I 
should like to catch the ten-twenty train.” 

“ Are you going up to town ? ” She faced suddenly 
round on him now, her tell-tale eyes fastened eagerly 
on his face. 

“ Yes. I only ran down to see how it was faring with 
you and Aunt Rebecca. I believe you get on without 
me as well as with me.” 

“ Let me go back with you, Adolphe.” 

She was standing by him now, with caressing arms 
twined about his neck and her cheek pressed close to his. 

“Go up to town with the thermometer among the nine- 


ROSE NEUMAN. 


87 

ties ? Go up unless you are compelled to ? Leave the 
ocean and the beach and the ponies and the flowers and 
Madame Fanchette and all the rest of it for hot, stony, 
uproarious New York ? ” He drew her around in front 
of him and looked into her face with a keener glance 
than was warranted by his raillery. 

“ Let me go with you, Adolphe, please, brother.” She 
fastened her eyes pleadingly on his face. Great liquid, 
gentle brown eyes they were, with an infinite power for 
pleading in their clear depths. 

What tremendously ambitious plans he had formed for 
her ! If only her own ambition had equalled her beauty 
what might she not have accomplished ? He crushed the 
newspaper under his hand into a rumpled mass. To 
think that all this sweetness and beauty and gentleness 
was to be wasted on that “ nonentity, Newcome.” He 
knew of no other fitting designation for the man who was 
in his toils, and was soon to be a member of his family. 

“ Give me one good reason,” he said, putting his hand 
under Rose’s chin, so that she could not elude his eyes, 
“ and I will take you with me.” 

“ I will be happier there.” 

“ Are you unhappy here, my little sister ? ” 

For all answer the great brown eyes grew brighter yet 
with unshed tears, and he could feel her slight form trem- 
bling in his clasp. 

“Isn’t your cottage as handsome as any in Newport? ” 
he asked, pressing the probe home gradually. 

“ Yes ; prettier, by far. I love my little cottage, 
brother. It was so good of you to let me carry out all 
my architectural whimsies in it.” 


88 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Are not your ponies the envied of all the envious ? ” 

“ Yes. My pretty Castor and Pollux, ah ! I do miss 
them when I go up to town ; but I want to go with you, 
Adolphe.” 

“ Perhaps it is time we were having some new dresses 
made ? That’s it. We want to go up to Madame Fer- 
neski.” 

“ Indeed, no, my brother, don’t think me such a doll. 
I won’t want any more dresses in an age.” 

“ Then it is just to bear me company in the hot, stony 
city that you want to leave Dick (hear how reproach- 
fully he is warbling at you) and Jim and Madame Fan- 
chette. What an affectionate little sister it is, and what 
a fortunate brother — I am ! ” 

Rose looked away from him. Her eyes fastened on 
Madame Fanchette, who, having finished the bowl of 
milk which she and Jim had shared in the most amicable 
fashion, was then making her toilet on the great Smyrna 
rug that nearly filled the centre of the little breakfast- 
room. 

“ I am not a good sister, Adolphe ; I wish I was. You 
deserve so much more than you get from me. Ah ! did 
ever a girl have a better brother than you are? You’ve 
been father and mother and all to me, Adolphe, and what 
have I been to you ? Nothing but a pest.” 

“ You’ve been the sunshine that was always ready to 
beam upon me whenever I would take time to bask in it, 
until — ” He stopped. 

“ Until — when — ?” Rose asked, forcing herself to 

look him bravely in the face. 

“ Until someone came between us.” 


HOSE NEUMAN-. 


89 


“ No one has come between us, brother.” She got up 
from his knee and walked away to her own chair at the 
table. “ No one ever will come between us.” 

“You haven’t thrown him over ? ” said Adolphe, open- 
ing his eyes in well feigned astonishment. 

“Thrown who over ? ” 

Bravado was not an easy role for Rose Neuman. A 
gentler, more transparent, more exquisitely truthful nature 
than hers never existed. She blushed, and stammered 
over the words in helpless embarrassment. 

“ Newcome,” said her brother. 

It was cruelly done, but he was resolved to see how far 
this foolish fancy had really carried her. 

A flush of crimson mantled from her neck to her brow, 
but she looked at him very honestly. 

“ I have had no opportunity to do anything of that sort, 
Adolphe.” 

“ But you would, if you had the opportunity ? ” 

“ You have no right to talk to me this way. It is cruel. 
I did not believe it was in you.” Her lips trembled like 
a hurt child’s, and rising hastily she darted towards the 
door. He put out a detaining hand and drawing her 
close to him, pressed his lips caressingly to her glistening 
eyes and burning cheeks. 

“ My little Rose,” he said, in a voice of infinite ten- 
derness, “ since the day our dear mother put you into my 
arms and begged me to be good to you and careful of 
you, have I ever knowingly caused you a moment of un- 
happiness ? ” 

“ Never, until now,” she said, sobbing the words out 
on his shoulder. 

“ Nor yet now,” he said. “ I was only trying you as I 
6 


90 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


had a right to try you. To my certain knowledge Mr. 
Newcome is going to ask you to marry him, and I 
hoped — ah ! well — ” he laughed a trifle bitterly. 

There was no one for him to finish his sentence to : 
she had raised her head, given him one luminous glance, 
and then glided out of the room with the noiseless speed 
of a bird on the wing. “ Hang me if I can understand 
it,” he said ; “ and she might have married a 7nan I ” 

He touched the bell and ordered his breakfast to be 
brought in immediately. “ Is Mrs. Lawrence down yet ? ” 
he asked of the waiter, to which a somewhat shrill femi- 
nine voice from somewhere out on the verandah answered, 
“ Yes ; ” and presently the owner of the voice came through 
the open French window and moved towards the break- 
fast-table with the dignity and the deliberation always 
demanded by advanced years and enormous bulk. 

“ I thought I heard you talking to Rose,” she said, nod- 
ding an excessively round head at her nephew, “ and I 
thought I wouldn’t come in until you got through with 
her. What has become of her ? ” 

“ She will be back presently,” Adolphe said, preparing 
to help the steak in front of him, while Mrs. Lawrence 
dropped ponderously into her chair. 

“ I’m glad you’ve made up your mind to have a serious 
talk with that child, Adolphe. This thing has gone far 
enough. Rose is a good girl, none better, but when one 
of your silent, intense girls does get a notion into her head 
she does allow it to run away with her so. I never could 
have believed she could have been so foolish ; but I hope 
you let her see her conduct in its true light.” 

“ I’m afraid I am a trifle behind the times. What has 


ROSE NEUMAAT. 


91 


Rose been doing so shocking to your sense of propriety, 
Aunt Rebecca ? I thought she was the pink of modesty 
and propriety.” 

“ So she was until she got this silly love nonsense in 
her head. It all comes of her being in such demand with 
this young fellow’s fine friends for her singing. And now 
she’s got a notion in her head that he is in some danger 
from that man Benedick, and last night she fairly took my 
breath away by getting up from the bench where she and 
I were sitting listening to the music, to go straight up to 
him and ask him to escort her home, for no reason in 
the world but that she wanted to get him away from 
Benedick. I declare it frightens me to think what con- 
struction might be put on such conduct. I’m afraid I’m 
too old and clumsy to be much of a chaperon for such a 
young and pretty thing, Adolphe. I wish you’d make 
haste and marry her off.” 

“ I am about to do that very thing,” said Adolphe, 
cracking his egg-shell with the nicest precision, “ and on 
very short notice. She is to be married two weeks from 
to-day.” 

“ Adolphe ! ” 

“ Aunt Rebecca ! ” 

“And I not to know a breath about it.” 

I only knew it myself last night.” 

“ To Henry Warner ? ” 

“ No. To Mr. Algernon Newcome.” 

“Adolphe!” 

“ Aunt Rebecca ? ” 

“ You don’t mean it.” 

“ I do.” 

“ But his mother ? ” 


92 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Has nothing to do with the case.’^ 

“ You’ve taken my breath away,” said Mrs. Lawrence, 
fanning herself vigorously by way of pumping up a fresh 
supply. 

“ I am sorry, but I thought it best to tell you, so as to 
relieve your mind as to any boldness on Rose’s part in 
requesting Mr. Newcome’s escort. By-the-way, the matter 
is not to be spoken of. 

“ What she can see in the fellow to admire passes my 
comprehension,” Adolphe continued, angrily pulling his 
napkin backward and forwards over his moustache, “ a 
poor simpering little dandy, who never earned an honest 
penny in the whole course of his useless life.” 

“ That’s just exactly it,” said Mrs. Lawrence, triumph- 
antly. “ I’ve heard her say it was a perfect delight to her 
to talk to Mr. Newcome, because he never had a word to 
say about money. Never seemed to know how it came 
or to care how it went.” 

“ I see, I see ; it’s the novelty of the thing. Poor little 
Rose ! she has grown up to the sound of clinking dollars ; 
she’s heard too much about them ; but after all it has pro- 
cured her flimsy toy for her.” 

“This is a strange step on your part, Adolphe. I 
thought you had other plans for Rose.” 

“ My sister has chosen for herself. Let me warn you 
again that this matter is not to be spoken of.” 

“ Of course not ; not for worlds ! There comes a tele- 
gram.” 

Mrs. Lawrence laid down her fan as the messenger 
reached the dining-room door, in preparation for any 
role that might be assigned heron the reading of the tele- 
gram. In company with a large proportion of her sex, 


ROSE NEi/MAxV. 


93 


she could never dissever the appearance of a telegram 
from sorhe tremendous catastrophe ; nothing short of 
arson, murder, or sudden death warranted the use of the 
wires, in Mrs. Lawrence’s estimation. 

“ Any bad news, Adolphe ? ” she asked, eagerly. 

“ No bad news. Aunt Rebecca,” he answered ; but the 
nature of the communication was sufficiently urgent to 
take him from his unfinished breakfast and cause him to 
leave for the city with only a message of farewell for 
Rose. 

“You are to say nothing to my sister concerning what 
1 have told you. Tell her I will be back day after to- 
morrow.” He crumpled the telegram in his hand and 
flung it into the waste-basket under his desk. 

“ Of course not ; not for worlds,” Mrs. Lawrence called 
after him, assenting to his command ; and then, as soon as 
he had disappeared, she made all haste to fish the crum- 
pled telegram from the waste-basket and to smooth it 
over her ample lap before reading it. She was hardly re- 
paid for her effort in stooping, which was one of the most 
difficult feats in life to Mrs. Lawrence. This was all there 
was in the telegram which came from New York : 

“ Meet me if you possibly can at 11.30 this morning at 
my office. A matter of moment to discuss. 

E. V. Roberts.” 

“ What is that, auntie ? ” Rose asked,., coming back into 
the breakfast-room as Mrs. Lawrence dropped the tel- 
egram once more into the scrap basket, “ and where is 
Adolphe } ” 

“ He was called away by a telegram that he threw on 
the floor, man fashion. Nothing at all alarming. He 


94 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


told me to tell you he would be back day after to-morrow. 
What a color you have, child ! You certainly must be 
feverish.” 

“ I feel quite well,” said Rose, pouring herself out a 
cup of coffee ; “ it is the sort of day that makes one flush 
up at the slightest exertion ;” and she flushed up then in 
mute contrition for her own awful duplicity. 

Mrs. Lawrence sat opposite to her pondering on the 
strange news she had just heard. Rose dawdled over her 
breakfast for the merest form’s sake. What had Adolphe 
meant by that strange assertion ? He had never in his 
life deceived her, and she did not doubt him now. But 
why had Mr. Newcome spoken to her brother instead of 
herself t 


/ 


CHAPTER IX. 


TAKING THE PLUNGE. 

“There is a letter for you to read, daughter,” said 
Mrs. Newcome, tossing Mrs. Dorsey’s suppressed letter 
across the round table at which she and Bella were mak- 
ing a ten o’clock breakfast on the morning after the hop. 
As the letter was not in its envelope Miss Newcome had 
no means of guessing that it had already been in her 
mother’s possession forty-eight hours. 

“ Flo coming ? Delicious ! ” 

She looked up with a radiant face. 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Newcome ; “ has come, rather ; she * 
got here a day or two before the letter, it seems ; and I’m 
sure I don’t know what it means, but I got this telegram 
from Mr. Roberts last night, and I knew it would only be 
worrying you uselessly to tell you about it. I suppose 
you and Algernon will have to run up to town this even- 
ing and bring her back with you. It’s asking altogether 
too much to expect me to go up to town in this heat.” 

She had delivered herself thus querulously while 
Bella had been casting her eye over the telegram. 

“ Mamma ! Flo hurt at our house and you let me go on 
dancing all night, and instead of being off by daybreak, 
here I am dawdling, and she with no one but papa and 
the servants to look after her ! I feel like a perfect 

95 


96 


TIIA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


wretch, and she must think me one too. She never 
would have treated me so. Do send for Algie and let 
us get off at once.” 

“ Silly, impetuous girl ! Don’t you see that Mr. Rob- 
erts speaks quite lightly of her injuries She is where 
she could get much better attention than she could here. 
I have already sent for your brother, so do finish your 
breakfast less tumultuously. I don’t believe you’ve fin- 
ished Mrs. Dorsey’s letter either. I wanted your opin- 
ion.” 

“ It’s awfully long,” said Bella, “ but I suppose I can’t 
start without Algie.” 

Then she undertook Mrs. Dorsey’s long letter in 
earnest. It consisted largely of maternal expressions of 
anxiety that Flo’s wardrobe would look shockingly coun- 
trified in the city, as she had had no time to fix her up 
properly. She could not lose this golden opportunity 
to get the child away from home. Then Flo’s mother 
went into an explanation of the urgent necessity for 
getting her away from home at that juncture : “ About a 
year ago a young doctor moved into our neighborhood, 
and what should he do but straightway fall in love with 
our Flo and ask her to marry him. Mr. Dorsey likes him 
through and through, and I don’t say but what he has 
some very good points as far as young men go now-a- 
days. There ain’t any engagement existing, for I just 
wouldn’t hear to such a thing, but Mr. Dorsey, who likes 
him enough better than I do, told him if they were both 
of the same mind one year from now, we would talk 
about it. If I can have my way, Flo at least shan’t be of 
the same mind. I’m going to keep her on the go for 
one solid year, and remembering how fond she was of 


TAAriATG THE PLUNGE. 


97 


Bella, indeed, how fond they both were of each other, 
I’ve seized the first opportunity that offered to send her 
on safely.” 

Then she went into some financial details by which 
Mrs. Newcome discovered that Mr. Dorsey had put a 
most lavish amount of money, subject to his daughter’s 
order, into a New York bank. 

Bella folded the letter up reflectively and laid it with 
the others. 

“Well, what do you think of it?” Mrs. Newcome 
asked. 

“ I used to love Flo dearly at school,” she answered ; 
‘‘she was just the dearest, most generous, and hand- 
somest girl there — but — Flo in love may be altogether 
a different creature. And then separated from her 
lover! Oh, I hope*she won’t be lackadaisical or tragic 
or anything of that sort, you know.” 

“ These are not the days of the troubadours, when peo- 
ple didn’t do anything but sing and sigh and die of love. 
I doubt whether her appetite has suffered much. I am 
worried over the inconvenience of this thing to our- 
selves.” 

“Inconvenience! Why, it’s just splendid. She can 
come on here and do Newport before she becomes a 
New Yorker.” 

“ I hope she is presentable ! ” 

“ Presentable ! why, mamma, unless she has changed 
tremendously in the three years we’ve both been away 
from school there’s no one here at Newport who can com- 
pare with her in point of beauty. She was as tall and 
straight and graceful as could be. And her eyes — oh ! 
they were just too beautiful for anything. Clear steel- 
7 


98 


Til A r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


gray, big as saucers, with long, black curly lashes. It was 
like looking into tw'O deep lakes to look down into Flo 
Dorsey’s eyes. I used to envy her her hair. I suppose 
it is what people call golden-brown, but it was the big 
shining waves in it that I specially delighted in. Her 
hands, too, were so pretty and white and small. If she 
hasn’t changed, mamma, you will be the chaperon of 
the sensation of the season if you bring Flo out here. 
Oh, I do wish she had come on in time for this big ball.” 
Bella clasped her hands ecstatically. 

Mrs. Newcome’s face had undergone several queer 
changes during this generous eulogium. 

“The Dorseys are enormously rich,” she said, reflec- 
tively, folding Mrs. Dorsey’s letter, which was written on 
very clumsy stationery, into numberless creases, “ and 
this girl is their only child ? ” this questioningly. 

“ Yes, poor Flo ! she used to lament so over that fact, 
and was always envying me Algie, and I remember I once 
told her spitefuly that she was more than welcome to 
him, he’d never done anything to enhance my happi- 
ness.” 

“ A most unsisterly remark,” said Mrs. Newcome, 
severely. 

“ It was, indeed,” said Bella, laughing, “ but if I 
remember rightly Algie had refused that morning to 
help me get my French exercise ready before I went to 
school ; and I know I quite hated him at times.” 

But Bella’s light words had set her thinking. What if 
the inopportune coming of this i;ich Texas girl just at 
this juncture should prove a good thing for Algernon. 
Providential, Mrs. Newcome called it, without once con- 
sidering that Providence might be dealing very unkindly 


TAKING THE PLUNGE. 


99 


by an innocent girl in linking her fate with young Mr. 
Newcome. It should not be her fault Tf Algernon did 
not have every opportunity of supplanting that young 
Texas doctor. 

“ Daughter,” she said, suddenly, “ it would be dishon- 
orable to let this poor girl’s little romance become public 
property. You must not let your brother into the secret. 
I hear him coming now. I shall simply give him the 
points of Miss Dorsey’s arrival, her accident, and the 
urgent necessity for your and his going for her.” 

Bella quite agreeing with her as to the mode of pro- 
cedure, Mr. Algernon Newcome was put briefly into 
possession of the leading facts as soon as he had gone 
through with his languid morning greetings : 

“ What is the damsel’s name ? ” he asked, eyeing with 
fastidious distaste the brilliant yellow envelope in which 
Mrs. Dorsey’s letter had arrived. 

“ Flo — Florine,” said Bella, reluctantly. Her friend’s 
given name had always struck her as the most objection- 
able thing about her. “ You remember her, Algie. I 
used to bring her home very often on Friday to stay over 
until Monday. She was awfully pretty, and used to take 
your unmannerly teasing like a little soldier.” 

“ Flo-rine ! Sounds uncommonly like a name for a new 
cosmetic or perfume or something of that sort. No, I 
can’t recall your Florine. Do you suppose she affects 
this sort of thing ? ” 

“ What, yellow envelopes ? ” Bella laughed in spite of 
herself at the absurd way in which her brother touched 
Mrs. Dorsey’s offending envelope with the prong of his 
fork : “ I only hope she does not affect anything worse.” 

“ By Jove, that would be a calamity. So you and 


lOO 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


mother have decided, have you, that we are to run over 
and fetch la belle sauvage back with us ? ” 

“ Yes, and we must get off as soon as possible,” said 
Bella, moving restlessly away from the tabl€. 

Young Newcome consulted his watch. “I must pay a 
visit here before leaving. It is imperative. I can be on 
hand for the i.io train — not sooner.” He flushed pain- 
fully. (Rose Neuman must be. visited that morning.) 

“ A social or business call ? ” asked Mrs. Newcome, 
taking quick note of the flush on his cheeks. 

“ Business,” he answered, promptly, and falsely too, un- 
less indeed his marriage contract with Miss Neuman could 
possibly come under the head of business, and then fol- 
lowed his sister’s example and left the table. 

“ Algie,” said Miss Newcome, beguiling the way as she 
and her brother dashed by rail towards the city a few 
hours later on, “ let me prophesy unto you.” 

“ Prophesy away ; there is some consolation to be de- 
rived from the fact that prophets are always so well satis- 
fied with the sound of their own voices that they don’t 
need to be talked to.” He drew his derby far down over 
his brow until nothing was visible of his face but the long 
blond moustache and the nose and chin, which Mrs. 
Newcome proudly claimed for the Vanderhoof side of 
the house. 

So Bella prophesied oracularly. 

“ Well ! I see you going into the house when we get 
home, prepared to be very gracious and encouraging to 
the little country girl, as you so absurdly insist upon 
calling Flo Dorsey. I see you confronted by a statuesque 
young woman (the teachers of deportment were always 
throwing Flo at our heads), with straight black eyebrows 


TAAVATG THE PLUNGE. 


lOI 


and big gray eyes, and an empressy look about her 
which will make you feel cold all over, when you recall 
your benignant intention of patronizing her. I see you 
progressing through all the incipient stages of love-mak- 
ing, admiration, adoration, adulation, fear, hope, despair, 
exaltation — ” 

“ Sum it all up in the one word despair, and skip — ” 

Bella put her hand over his lips and resumed. 

“ I see you beginning to wonder how you can improve 
on yourself by way of finding favor with our Texas Juno. 
I see you wishing you were every other fellow, or pos- 
sessed of the various qualities in each fellow upon whom 
she may chance to bestow a word of praise. I see you 
finally kneeling before her metaphorically, with an abject 
sense of your own shortcomings weighing you down, 
and wooing for the hand and heart of ‘ that girl from 
Texas,’ as you so contemptuously call my dear Flo now.” 

I’ll be dashed if you do,” he said, violently, regain- 
ing an upright position and pushing his hat far back on 
his small head. 

“You can’t help it,” said Bella, laughing mockingly. 
“ I only hope when that inevitable day comes you may 
find the girl from Texas propitious. I’m not a bit un- 
selfish in this. Of course you’ll have to marry somebody 
one of these days, and Flo would be a most unobjection- 
able sister-in-law. I could adore her. I suppose the fact 
that she is enormously rich will not detract from her 
beauty in your eyes.” 

“ Is that beauty so very great } ” Algernon asked, oc- 
cupying his nervous fingers with rolling a cigarette, from 
sheer force of habit, and wishing he was in the smoking- 
car instead of where he was, so that he might utilize it. 


102 


THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ She is the handsomest woman I know,” says Bella, in 
a voice of conviction. 

“ I’ve heard you say the same thing of Rose Neuman.” 

“ Oh, that is another thing altogether,” Bella answers, 
argumentatively. “ Rose is the handsomest woman I 
ever saw., but I am speaking of people whom we know. 
People whom we can associate with.” 

“We know her,” Rose’s fiance says, experimenting 
with the future rather recklessly, “ and we can associate 
with her.” 

“ Perhaps we do know her, after a fashion. We’ve 
known her and that fat old Mrs. Lawrence ever since we’ve 
known the beach at Newport, and we’ve filled our buckets 
when we were a lot of romping youngsters, from the same 
sand-heaps ; but what are you arguing for, Algie ; I’m get- 
ting befogged. Rose Neuman sings divinely. I’ll admit 
that.” 

“ I am arguing simply for the fact that Miss Dorsey is 
not the handsomest woman you know.” 

“Yes, but she is. She is the handsomest woman you 
are ever likely to be thrown with on a social equality, 
so I forewarn you of your peril.” 

“ I have a safeguard that you know not of,” said her 
brother, giving the cigarette such a violent twist that the 
flimsy paper yielded and the weed besprinkled them 
both. “ I wear an amulet that will render Miss Dorsey’s 
arrows harmless.” 

“ In Rose Neuman ? ” Bella asked, mockingly, as she 
flicked the tobacco off her travelling duster. 

“ What would you say if I were to answer yes to that 
last question ? ” Algernon asked, looking at her furtively 
from under the rim of his hat. 


TAKING THE PLUNGE. 


103 


“ I would say that it was very ungentlemanly in you to 
make so poor a jest at Miss Neuman’s expense. I ex- 
pect she is a very good girl. I wish I owned those 
ponies of hers. They say she is not a bit commonplace. 
That brother has had her educated and accomplished 
until she is a perfect marvel of acquirements. And 
she has such a horror of the money-makers and money- 
seekers that it is a perfect craze with her. Pity, isn’t 
it ? ” 

“ Why ? ” her brother asked. 

“ Because, of course, she will have to marry in her 
own set, and then she will be miserable for life.” 

“ That remains to be seen,” said Algernon. 

“You seem to know a good deal about them,” Bella 
said, teasingly ; “ have you been studying the history of 
the Neuman family ? ” 

“When is Ridgway going back to England.?” Alger- 
non asked, turning the tables upon her in sheer despera- 
tion. 

She looked at him frigidly. She was not ignorant of 
the expectations and the hopes her mother was indulging 
in touching Lord Rainsforth’s son, but the subject and 
the man were alike distasteful to her. 

“ I haven’t the remotest idea,” she said, repellently. 
“When he does go, society will lose its most brilliant 
waltzer. Only that and nothing more.” 

But it was not simply bantering retaliation that had 
brought the Honorable Frederic Ridgway’s name into 
the conversation. If Algernon Newcome could be said 
to love anything unselfishly it was the pretty sister by 
his side. He wanted Bella to be married and out of the 
country before his disgrace should become public, so he 


104 TJ/AT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 

returned her repellent glance with one of unusual deter- 
mination for him as he asked : 

“ Aren’t you going to marry him ? Bella, be honest 
with me.” 

“Algie, you are a simpleton. There now, that’s being 
honest with you. Don’t speak to me again until we get 
home.” She turned her back resolutely on him. 

“ He is flawless in mother’s eyes,” the young man con- 
tinued in monologue, “ and as I suppose there’s no flaw 
in his title ; I hope you won’t keep society too long on the 
rack. It is true the young man himself might have a 
little more sense, and I’ve seen much better looking men 
— Roberts, for instance ” — he looked at her sideways as 
he mentioned the junior partner’s name. It was to find 
her soft cheeks aflame. 

“ I thought so,” he said to himself, and sighed. 

“ This car is enough to suffocate one,” said Bella, giv- 
ing a petulant and ineffectual tug at the window beside 
her. Algernon leaned over her to raise it, and she heard 
him mutter words w^hose meaning came to her only after 
many days. 

“ Things are in a universal snarl in the Newcome fam- 
ily, there’s no mistake about it.” 

When they reached the town house he let himself and 
Bella in with his latch-key. One burner only was alight 
in the hall. The long front-parlor lay in obscurity, but as 
they entered it, in the lighted room beyond they saw two 
figures standing, both of them tall, both of them stately, 
and at that moment completely absorbed in each other. 
One of them was listening with eager interest to what the 
other one was saying. It was Flo who was talking in a 
slow, sweet drawl, not easily understood at that distance ; 


TAKING THE TLUNgT:. 


loS 

but what she was saying seemed to impress Mr. Roberts 
as being very fine, for suddenly bending forward he lifted 
her left hand (the right one was in a sling) and impressed 
a kiss on it with old-fashioned courtesy. 


CHAPTER X. 


MR. ROBERTS IS BAFFLED. 

“Tableau vivant,” Algernon whispered softly into 
Bella’s ears. 

“ Come away from here,’* she said, in a low, passionate 
voice ; then suddenly reversing her position she fled in 
the opposite direction, not so rapidly, however, but that 
she caught Flo’s sweet voice slightly raised to ask ear- 
nestly : 

“ Then I have your promise, Mr. Roberts ? ” 

“ You have, my dear young lady.” 

It was very solemn and very mysterious, and Bella 
wished she did not feel such a burning craving to know 
what it all meant. She hated herself for the ready up- 
flaming of a passion which up to that moment of her life 
she had thought was the peculiar attribute of small and 
mean minds. “ I am jealous,” she avowed mentally, in 
a passionate burst of self-accusation. “ Jealous of a man 
who has never uttered one word of love to me. Jealous 
of my own friend, and oh ! how I despise myself for it !” 
All this while she was retracing her steps through the 
dark front-parlor, cautiously and noiselessly, conscious of 
but one desire, and that to gain her own bedroom and 
compose herself before meeting Flo and Mr. Roberts. 
“They could tell at a glance what was the matter with me 

io6 


MR. ROBERTS IS BAFFLED. I07 

now,” she said, pressing her hands to her hot cheeks. 
But the flitting of feminine garments through the dimly- 
lighted hall caught Flo’s quick eye. 

“ Bella ! ” she cried, and darting into the hall she 
clasped her old school-mate about the neck in a transport 
of joy. Bella hated herself worse than ever because she 
could get up no answering ecstasy. It was all so differ- 
ent from what she had anticipated. She submitted to 
rather than returned Flo’s caresses, drawing back pres- 
ently to say, as she laid her hand gently on the sling, 

“ I expected to find you in bed. We have been feeling 
so wretchedly about you, no one here to look after you.” 

“ It is only a pin-scratch,” said Flo, readjusting the 
sling that had gotten twisted in her impulsive onslaught, 
“and I’ve been made enough over on account of it to 
make it quite enjoyable. I shall part with this sling with 
the keenest regret. But all this time I’m keeping poor 
Mr. Roberts in the background, and if ever there was a 
man entitled to a position in the foreground he is on this 
occasion.” It took her quite a little while to say it in 
her lazy little drawl, and Bella felt fresh pangs at the easy 
way in which she disposed of Mr. Roberts ; but he was 
holding out his hand to her and looking at her in a way 
that made her say, with that ready desire to be just that 
never forsook her : 

“ I am afraid we have lost grace hopelessly in your 
eyes. We seem to have treated our guest with absolute 
barbarity ; but there has been some strange delay in the 
messages.” 

“ I have not once thought of sitting in judgment on 
you.” 

He dwelt ever so slightly on the word you. But it had 


to8 T//At GIRL from TFXAG. 

a soothing effect on Bella’s excited nerves. Turning 
back to Miss Dorsey with a sudden influx of the old-time 
love for her in eyes and voice, she clasped Flo’s well arm in 
both her hands, saying : 

“ Come with me to my own room, you poor dear, and 
tell me all about it.” 

“Without even being introduced to Mr. R. Algernon 
Newcome?” Flo drawled, sweeping that gentleman one of 
the quaintest of old-time courtesies as she measured him 
from head to foot with her swift, keen glance. 

“ I am consumed with envy of my friend Mr. Roberts 
here,” said R. Algernon, holding his drab derby close to 
his heart while bowing reverently before the girl from 
Texas, before indicating that individual by flourishing the 
hat in his direction. “ He is always in luck, and I am 
always out of it. He has had the inestimable privilege 
of being useful to Miss Dorsey, while I was all uncon- 
scious of her extremity or her proximity.” 

“ Mr. Roberts has been real good to me,” Flo says 
simply; “ but I haven’t been in any extremity, thank you ; 
at least,” and here her laugh rang out in unrestricted 
freedom, “not since I succeeded in convincing Xndrew 
that I was not a confidence woman. Oh ! come, Bella, 
I’m dying to have a good talk with you ; I’ve so much to 
tell you.” 

The two young women had disappeared up the long 
flight of stairs before Mr. Roberts turned to the son of 
the house and addressed him in a voice of peculiar cold- 
ness : 

“ I presume you have not seen your father since your 
arrival ? ” 


MA\ ROBERTS IS BAFFLED. 


109 


“ My dear fellow, we are but just this moment arrived,” 
the heir of the house said, with a patronizing drawl. 

“ I am fortunate, then, in getting your ear first. A few 
moments, please ; ” and motioning him to a seat, Mr. 
Roberts took the remarkable precaution of looking up 
and down the hall, to make sure that there were no lis- 
teners around, before seating himself by young New- 
come’s side. 

“ If you have not seen your father it is not likely you 
have heard of the trouble we are in.” 

“ We ? Who the deuce is we ? ” Algernon asked, tak- 
ing refuge in rude bluster for fear that the terror of his 
soul might set his teeth to chattering if he did not make 
haste to say something. 

“The firm,” said the junior partner, taking furtive note 
of every sign of agitation. “ A queer thing has come to 
light in the past few weeks. A lot of bonds have been 
set afloat bearing the signature of your father as Presi- 
dent of the Downing Electric Company, which turn out to 
be forged bonds. Some of the coupons have been paid, 
which kept the thing dark a little while longer, but one of 
the holders has his suspicions aroused and threatens no 
end of trouble.” 

“ Who is the holder ? ” Algernon asked, looking the 
junior partner full in the face. 

“ Adolphe Neuman, of Varick Street, is one of the heavi- 
est holders.” 

“ Neuman — Varick — ah ! yes, I believe I’ve heard the 
name. How did the rascality come to light ? through 
him ? ” 

“ Yes. When a third lot of the coupons fell due, there 
was no one ready to redeem them.” 


I lO 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Suspicion attach to anyone in particular ? ” Algernon 
asked, taking filial interest in a piece of roguery that 
touched his father so nearly. 

“ Yes,” — Mr. Roberts said it slowly and reluctantly, — 
“ I am sorry to say that there are those cruel enough to 
believe your father has connived at this scheme.” 

“ Stuff ! Father can easily enough clear himself of any 
such blundering charges.” 

“ Could if he would. The difficulty will be to get him 
to denounce the real criminals. A more blindly self- 
abnegatory man never lived.” 

Well, what in the deuce have I got to do with all 
this ? ” Newcome got up and paced the floor with a fair 
assumption of being merely annoyed at having such dis- 
agreeable matters thrust at him so promptly. “ I sup- 
pose father will know how to deal with the scoundrel 
or scoundrels if he catches up with them.” 

“ It will not be your father who has’Ro deal with 
them.” 

“ Who ? Neuman ? ” 

Algernon could even afford to smile. At that moment 
the security of his position with Neuman was a source 
of absolute comfort to him. 

“ No, not Neuman.” 

“ Who then ? ” his tones were not so insolently confi- 
dent. 

“ It will be the strong and merciless arm of the 
law.” Mr. Roberts got up and walked over to the table 
where he had left his gloves and hat ; he looked gravely 
into the crown of the hat and not at Algernon as he 
added : “ I thought I would tell you of the trouble your 
father was in, for he is not much given to talking about 


MR. ROBERTS IS BAFFLED. 


II 


himself or his affairs. I’ve succeeded in keeping this af- 
fair quiet, for the present. I have some influence with 
Neuman, I believe. You will find your father pretty 
badly broken up by it.” 

“You are more than considerate,” said Newcome, with 
a sneer. “ The old man will be all right now that Bella 
is at home. He always cuts up a little rough when we 
are all awa}'. Doubtless, if there’s anything unpleasant 
on hand. I’ll hear it in full from him. What steps does 
Neuman propose to take ? ” 

“ I am not quite prepared to say. I will see him to- 
morrow.” 

“ Is he the only bondholder that’s getting restive ? ” 

“ So far as heard from. But there may be a general 
explosion at any moment.” 

“ Let us hope for the best,” said Algernon, calmly 
offering his cigar-case to the junior partner. “ I’m not a 
good hand «t straightening out snarls of this sort, but if 
there’s any role you or father can assign me, amateur de- 
tective, you know, or something of that sort, just consider 
that I am yours to command.” 

Mr. Roberts went away, baffled and curious. If Alger- 
non Newcome was at the bottom of the crime for which 
his father was then suffering all the torture a pure and 
sensitive soul was capable of suffering, he certainly had 
more nerve than anyone had ever credited him with. 
And if, on the contrary, he had nothing to do with it, 
who then were the guilty parties ? 


CHAPTER XI. 


Bella’s awakening. 

■ 

“ Now then,” said Miss Newcome, rolling a big rocker 
close up to the dresser, in her own room, at the close 
half an hour’s incessant chatter, during which she had 
received a rather garbled account of Flo’s accident, which 
she accepted unquestionably, “you talk away as fast 
as you can, while I get rid of a little of this railroad 
grime, before I run and find papa.” 

She was standing in front of the glass, rapidly ridding 
herself of veil, hat, duster, gloves and all the other impedi- 
menta of travel. “ Poor old papa ! when I entered the 
dimly lighted hall down-stairs and stumbled through the 
dark parlor, I could not help thinking of his coming 
home that way every night, with no one here to even say 
good evening to. Such a dear unselfish papa as he is 
too.” 

“ He is the most uncomplaining man I ever saw or 
heard of in all my life,” said Miss Dorsey, with such em- 
phasis that the color mounted to her friend’s cheeks. 

“ I hope,” Miss Newcome said, a trifle coldly, moving 
away from the dresser towards the wash-stand, “ that he has 
not such an awful deal to complain of. He really need 
not confine himself so closely to business, but, as mamma 
says, when a man once gets a passion for money-making 
fastened on him, he loses interest in everything else. 

II2 


BELLA'S A WAKENLNG. 


3 


There is no reason in the world why papa shouldn’t 
leave town when we do every summer, instead of mewing 
himself up here alone. It is an injustice to mamma, in 
fact.” 

She was splashing away in the bowl in her dressing- 
room by this time, and conversation was necessarily im- 
peded. Flo felt her indignation aroused when she 
thought of the gentle, refined, care-worn face of the old 
man down-stairs, who seemed to her to be suffering a 
daily and hourly crucifixion, and heard his own daughter 
speak of him as having a “ passion for money-making.” 

Either Bella was very ignorant or she was very wicked, 
and Flo was going to find out which it was before she 
slept another night as her guest — she did not care who 
got mad with her. She believed Mr. Newcome was kill- 
ing himself, and all for what ? She would talk plainly to 
Bella, at the risk of a snubbing. 

“ You know mamma expects us to bring you back with 
us to Newport,” said Bella, returning to her, looking 
much fresher and brighter ; “ but we will talk that over 
to-morrow. It’s about time papa was getting back for 
dinner.” 

“ I don’t think Mr. Newcome has been down to his 
office to-day,” said Flo, glad of an excuse to bring the 
talk back to her host. “ Indeed, Bella, if you will forgive 
me for seeming to know more about your father’s state 
of health than you do yourself, I should say that Mr. 
Newcome was very far from well.” 

“ Who says so ? ” Bella dropped the tiny brush with 
which she was dusting the powder out of her eyebrows, 
and turned an almost angry face on her daring guest, 

§ 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


1 14 

“ He is so desperately thin,” said Flo, slightly daunted, 
but heroically resolved not to go back from the stand she 
had assumed. 

“ He has been that ever since I’ve known him,” said 
Bella, “ and I’m so thankful for it. I detest obese men.” 

Yes, but, Bella, — oh, my dear Bella, please let me talk 
to you just as I would want you to talk to me if you were 
to find my darling papa in trouble that I knew nothing 
of. Don’t look at me so freezingly.” 

She put out her hand impulsively, and drawing Bella 
close to her pushed her into the big chair and dropped on 
her knees on a hassock that brought their faces on a 
level. Her voice was tremulous but very sweet : 

“ I want to look at you steadily, Bella, then I’ll know 
whether you are heartless or only ignorant.” 

“ How tragic you are ! ” said Bella, meeting her search- 
ing gaze unflinchingly ; “ ask papa if he thinks me heart- 
less.” 

“ No, he thinks you perfect, and you are, very nearly, 
in point of physical perfection. Bella, you are just beau- 
tiful, and you know it too.” 

Miss Newcome blushed from embarrassment, and made 
a vain effort to rise out of the easy-chair where she was 
pinioned by Flo’s hands resting on her own as they 
clasped the arms. Flo laughed triumphantly at her 
failure. 

“ Don’t try to get away from me. We used to say all 
sorts of things to each other and nobody ever got mad.” 

“ We were silly children then.” 

“ We were honest children then. Yes, Bella, you are 
perfectly beautiful, there is no mistake about that, and of 
course you have scores of admirers. It must be a stu- 


BELLA^S AWAKENING. 


II5 

pendous undertaking to pick out the right man from such 
a pile. It’s something like playing jack-straws, I imag- 
ine ; if you shake you are lost. I can see how absorbing 
it must be.” 

“ You are a romantic little goose,” said Bella, not yet 
catching the under-tow of serious meaning to this flow of 
embarrassing personalities. Flo gazed at her specula- 
tively as she continued. • 

“Yes, I can quite see how onerous your duties must 
be. And then, as a leader in your set, what a terrible 
responsibility rests upon you as a dresser ! I really think 
if I found myself in a position that should require me to 
pay the most minute attention to my shoes and gloves 
and hats for fear they wouldn’t match my dress and 
parasol exactly, I should be a subject for the lunatic 
asylum before a year was out. I can make allowances 
for you on that score too. My love, you have your bur- 
dens to bear.” 

“ Florine Dorsey,” said Bella, growing inquisitorial in 
her turn, “ you were always the freest-spoken girl in the 
world, but there are some things you can afford to learn 
from the fashionable world you pretend to despise — ” 

“ Despise ! ” said Flo, with uplifted hands ; “haven’t I 
come all the way on here to learn how to be just like it 
I expect to be your most abject copyist.” 

“ You expect nothing of the kind. You despise me, 
and all because you happened to find papa here alone 
for a few weeks. It is not good form to take people to 
task in such a fashion.” She had risen, flushed and 
wounded, and Flo got up too. She was taller by many 
inches and she drew Bella to her side, folding her arms 
about her almost maternally. 


1 16 THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 

“ I don’t despise you ; I love you. They’ve tried their 
very best to spoil you, but they haven’t succeeded yet. 
Even 'your dear papa has helped to blind you. Oh ! 
Bella, please don’t think me a prying busybody, but I 
know Mr. Newcome is sick and in trouble, and I know he 
is keeping it all from you, and I know when papa is in 
trouble he always turns to me for comfort, as quickly 
almost as he does to mamma. There now, I know there 
isn’t any rule of etiquette to warrant me in daring to 
speak that way to you, and if it has quite killed the old 
love for me I’ll go away ; but I won’t say I’m sorry for 
having given you this hint, for I am not, and I would want 
you to do the very same by me. I was sitting in the 
library reading this morning, and Mr. Newcome had 
fallen into a doze on the. lounge ; he looked thoroughly 
worn out. I stole up to drop a veil over his face, for one 
persistent little wretch of a fly kept dancing over his nose 
and the little bald place on his head, and I suppose he 
must have been dreaming of you, for he put his hand out 
aimlessly and muttered sleepily, ‘ My precious Bella, I 
feel better already, dear.’ ” 

Hush ! You will break my heart.” 

Bella put her hand over Flo’s lips ; her own voice was 
husky and her eyes were shining. Then she slipped from 
her friend’s detaining arm and walked swiftly out of the 
room, down to the library, where she supposed she would 
find her father ; but it was empty. Through the empty 
parlors, back into the dimly lighted hall. He must be 
about the house, for his hat was hanging on the rack. 
How stupid of her ! Of course he was dressing for din- 
ner. But she could not wait for his formal reappearance 
to-night, Flo had made her utterly \yretqhed^ and she 


BELLA 'S A WAKENING. 1 1 7 

would not draw a comfortable breath until she had her 
wicked arms about his precious neck. 

Her first and second knock at his chamber door re- 
ceiving no response, she gently turned the knob and 
looked anxiously into the room. One burner by the side 
of his dressing-table had been lighted, and turned so 
low that she could just distinguish the tall form of her 
father, wrapped in a dressing-gown and stretched on his 
bed. She went quickly forward, with a nameless terror 
tugging at her heart-strings. She knelt down by the low 
bed and peered anxiously into his face. How thin and 
worn and old it looked in that dim light ! Flo was right. 
He was awfully thin ; he had fallen away to a shadow. 
It would be a pity to waken him from such a sound sleep. 

One of his hands had dropped over the side of the bed. 
It looked so uncomfortable that way, she could certainly 
lift it and lay it on his breast without waking him. She 
touched it ever so gently, but he flung her off with an 
angry gesture, muttering pleadingly : “ Don’t handcuff 
me, gentlemen ; I assure you I will go without the slightest 
opposition. I’ve quite made up my mind to it. Don’t 
handcuff me ; it’s not necessary.” 

She dropped the hand, startled and wondering. It was 
hot and dry and fevered. She kneeled over him and laid 
her hand on his head. The touch broke the chain of his 
fevered sleep, but soothed him at the same time. 

“That’s nice,” he murmured, “very nice. I smell 
flowers — the flowers that my little Bella used to wear. 
What was it ? — mignon — mignon — mi — I wish Bella was 
home.” 

“ Father ! ” she could endure it no longer. If he did 


TI/A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


Il8 

not wake up and take her in his arms, and tell her that 
he forgave all her cruel selfishness, her heart would 
surely break. 

“ Father ! ” She bent over and kissed him. 

He opened his eyes and stared at her as she knelt 
there in the obscure light, then said very gently : 

“ Florine, my dear, it’s good of you to watch by an old 
man this way ; but you must be tired, child. Bella will be 
coming home to-morrow. You must not think she 
wouldn’t have been here long ago if she’d known I 
wanted her. Bella isn’t selfish ; she — just — don’t — ” 

“ Father ! ” But he would not answer her this time. 

He had dropped off again into that strange stupid 
sleep, without even knowing that she was there begging 
to be forgiven and caressed. 

Her sobs shook her form violently. She wet the hot 
hand hanging over the bedside with her unavailing tears. 
Supposing he should die without ever again recognizing 
her ! Perhaps after all he needed this sleep, and she had 
done the very worst possible thing for him in trying to 
arouse him out of it. This fear made her crouch humbly 
on the floor by his side, and only allowing herself a fur- 
tive kiss once in a while on the hot hand that she dared 
not take in her own, she fastened her gaze on his 
closed and sunken eyes, to watch for his first aroused 
look. 

“ He will know me when he wakes up,” she said, pit- 
ifully ; “ and I’ll never, never, never leave him again. 
Poor, dear, precious papa ! 

As she crouched there on the carpet, all the years of 
her life seemed to parade past her, each one burdened 


BELLA'S AWAKEAWG. 


II9 

with the same story of patient forbearance and sacrificial 
love on the one part — but what on the other ? ingratitude, 
selfishness, blindness, cruelty ! She could not find words 
harsh enough for her own condemnation in this the hour 
of her bitter self-abasement. She must have grown 
drowsy, crouching there on the floor in that motionless 
attitude, and have closed her eyes, for she did not catch 
that first glance she was so eager for. Instead, she was 
startled to her feet by seeing her father suddenly spring 
bolt upright in the bed, and point to the door impera- 
tively : 

“ You in here ! Bella, my daughter ! Roberts gave me 
his word of honor, as a gentleman, that you should not 
be allowed to visit me here. My daughter Bella breath- 
ing the foul air of Ludlow jail ! ” 

She was on her feet now, holding out her arms implor- 
ingly to him, while she crooned over him like a mother 
over an ailing infant. 

“ Papa, of course I’m here. Your own loving Bella ! 
You’ve been sleeping and having ugly dreams, and talk- 
ing all sorts of nonsense. There now she had gathered 
the hot and furrowed forehead, with its fringe of rumpled 
gray hair, close in her arms, and was showering kisses on 
it; “and there, and there. I’ve come home to stay, 
father ; aren’t you glad ? Say you are glad, father dear.” 

“ I am very glad, my dear.” He was wide awake now, 
and beyond an inexpressibly anxious look on his worn 
face, in no way different from his usual self. His usual 
self was characterized by a gentle and stately courtesy 
that overflowed upon everyone. It overflowed upon 
Bella now, and made the remorseful tears spring to her 
eyes. 


120 


T//A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Have you seen your young friend, my daughter ? I 
am afraid she has had a very dull time waiting for you. 
And mother — she is with you ? ’’ He looked at her very 
wistfully. 

“ No, mamma didn’t come, papa. She expected me to 
go back to Newport and take Flo with me.” 

“ Of course, of course,” said the old man, gently ; but 
with her new-found insight into the true state of affairs, it 
was not hard for Bella to detect the falling inflection of 
disappointment in his gentle voice. “ Of course, of 
course/’ he repeated ; “ that will be far better for Miss 
Dorsey. She’s a fine girl, daughter, a fine girl.” 

“ But I’m not going back to Newport, father.” 

“Not going back to Newport! Not going back to 
Newport I I don’t think I heard you aright, daughter. 
I’m sorry to complain, but my head is very bad to-night. 
Run away and play — don’t make any noise ; mamma’s 
asleep in the next room, she’ll scold us if we scamper 
about so.” He laughed in a subdued fashion, and put 
one of his hot hands over Bella’s mouth, with a motion 
that came back to him from the long ago. 

How many hours had he lent himself to her childish 
amusement when her more selfish mother had been tak- 
ing her ease I How many jolly romps he and she had 
had together in the long Sunday afternoons, when they 
had been thrown on each other for companionship ! 
And what had she ever given back to him ? Nothing — 
nothing — nothing. 

She almost moaned the words out as, with a gentle 
gesture of infinite weariness, her father put her away 
from him, and falling heavily back upon his pillow, closed 
his eyes once more in sleep. She did not crouch by his 


BELLA'S A WAKENING, 


I2I 


side this time ; instead she went quickly out of the room 
and wrote this telegram, which she dispatched immedi- 
ately by Andrew : 

“ Father is ill, and I am not coming back to Newport 
at all,” and despatched it to her mother. 

“ Algernon may go back if he pleases,” she said to her- 
self, after watching Andrew fairly out into the street with 
the despatch, “but I will never, never take up that old 
life again. If God will only not punish me this time. I’ll 
be so good to papa — oh ! so very good to him.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


LORD RAINSFORTH’s SON. 

And nothing could move her from that resolution. 
Mr. Newcome seemed quite himself the next morning, 
made his appearance at the breakfast-table and beamed 
impartially on the two girls who so brightened it up for 
him. His son he had -not seen yet. Andrew' reported 
him as having requested to be w'aked at ten and not be- 
fore. He belonged to that large class whose absence 
from the domestic circle never produces inconsolable 
regrets from anyone. 

“ I expect mamma will be coming on by to-morrow, 
father, ” said Bella, getting up from the head of the table 
to bring him his coffee cup with her own hands, “ and 
you look so bright this morning that I am afraid she will 
scold me for an alarmist.” 

Mr. Newcome looked seriously alarmed himself as he 
asked ; “ What have you done, my daughter } ” 

“ I telegraphed to mamma last night that you were not 
at all well and that I was not going back to Newport. 
But — oh — Flo — I beg your pardon for not consulting you 
before I sent it. Algie could take you on, though, if you 
want very much to go. Indeed, I think mamma will w^ant 
you to come.” 

“ I couldn’t think of such a thing, ” said Miss Dorsey, 
very decidedly; “ it will be just as nice as possible here 

122 


LORD RAINSFORTH'S SON. 


123 

now that you have come. The idea of my making my 
entree into Newport society with an arm in a sling.” 

“It just makes you look awfully interesting, don’t it, 
papa ? ” 

But Mr. Newcome turned so pale and looked at Flo so 
pitifully that she took herself severely to task for having 
alluded to it. She looked at him sweetly as she said, 
archly : 

“ I shall be quite contented to look interesting in your 
eyes and in Mr. Newcome’s. Two admirers are as much 
as I can cope with at once. Tell me what people do at 
such places as Newport. You know I am such a bar- 
barian.” 

“ Nothing, ” said Bella, “ absolutely nothing. It makes 
me yawn to think of it. Though when I am there I am 
just as deep in it as anybody. Atmospheric influence, 
you know.” 

“ Describe it to me,” says Flo, leaning lazily back in 
her chair, while Andrew cut up her steak for her. 
Andrew was her most devoted slave by this time and it 
was impossible for him to do enough for her. 

Bella looked at her reflectively for a second. “ I 
don’t know how to describe a soap-bubble — do you ? ” 

“A soap bubble? of course I do. It is round and 
prismatic and empty.” 

“ So is life at. Newport, ” says Bella, accepting the defi- 
nition wholesale. “ Everybody gets up very late because 
they haven’t had any sleep, you know. And everybody 
yawns at everybody else and says the same thing to 
everybody else every morning. And we all sit around 
and talk about each other until it’s time to bathe — people 
bathe there now ; it was horribly unfashionable a year or 
two' ago — and then we rest — ” 


124 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ From what ? ” Flo interrupts, laconically. 

“ From doing nothing, until it is time to dress for a 
drive. That is about the only enjoyable thing in the 
whole day to me. Oh, by-the-way, papa, I do wish you 
could see Miss Neuman’s turn-out. I quite envy her it.” 

“ Neuman ! ” Mr. Newcome had fallen into an ab-. 
stracted reverie during the talk of the two girls, but at 
the name of Neuman he started violently, as if from 
sleep. 

“Yes; Miss Rose Neuman. It is just the toniest 
thing in Newport. They say her brother had the phaeton 
made to order for her, and that her ponies are priceless. 
I think when she drives out, handling the reins so grace- 
fully herself, and with that cute little groom of hers in the 
tiger’s seat behind, it is a perfect sight. They say her 
brother adores her and lavishes money on her in the 
most reckless manner. And he must from the way she 
lives.” 

“ Yes, I know Neuman. He’s rather an unusual sort 
of man in his line. I think I will have to leave you, my 
dears ” — he had risen from table — “ and, daughter, I 
think I shall send another telegram to your mother, tell- 
ing her by no means to curtail her usual visit. I shall 
give her to understand that I have entirely recovered 
from the slight indisposition of yesterday. We must not 
have mamma coming back to the city while it is so hot. 
You know the heat debilitates her so. Finish your 
breakfast, my dears, but you will please excuse me.” He 
waved them a gentle apology and went out of the room. 

An hour later, Bella, going in search of him, found him 
walking up and down the library, his long thin hands 
clasped behind his back, his head drooped on his breast. 


LORD RAINSFORTirS SON. 


25 


muttering incoherently to himself. She did not intrude 
upon him, but went off to find Algernon to make him a 
participant of her fears concerning their father. 

In the meantime Mrs. Newcome, feeling very much 
like a general whose army has deserted him and left him 
without adequate force to continue the campaign, had 
reluctantly telegraphed what train she would take the 
next day for her return to the city ; had given orders to 
her maid that sent that much-put-upon functionary in 
hysterical haste to the work of packing five immense 
trunks with neatness and despatch ; and then seated her- 
self to write a note to the Honorable Frederick Ridgway, 
which should skilfully convey the idea that she did not 
want to lose sight of him, without having any clumsy 
appearance of manoeuvring. 

In it she dwelt with wifely concern on the painful in- 
formation she had received from home, with maternal 
pride on her daughter’s dutiful devotion to an invalid 
father, and with the keenest regret in this sudden break- 
ing-up of the pleasant little coterie of which the Honor- 
able Frederick was the choicest spirit. To her scarcely, 
concealed satisfaction, the news contained in this dainty 
farewell note was regarded as momentous enough to bring 
Lord Rainsforth’s son almost immediately in person to 
express his regrets. 

He found Mrs. Newcome buried in a litter of fashion- 
able stationery, with no other companion at hand but 
Rex, who was curled up in luxurious ease at her feet. 
Rex raised his small black nose superciliously on the 
Honorable Frederick’s entrance, seemed to satisfy him- 
self at a glance of the harmlessness of the species, and 
once rnore addresse(^ himself to slumber, 


26 


THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS, 


“ Yes, but you know you don’t really mean it ; you can’t,” 
said the son of my Lord Rainsforth, dropping lazily into 
a chair, after greeting Mrs. Newcome languidly. Then he 
fell to pulling his full blond whiskers with more energy 
than one would have thought him capable of. Crossing 
one long leg over the other, he looked at Mrs. Newcome 
deprecatingly with a countenance full of abject distress. 

“Can’t mean what, Mr. Ridgway ? ” Mrs. Newcome 
had laid down her pen on his entrance and was beaming 
on him now, with her jewelled hands crossed on the little 
table that held her writing materials. This species 
required infinite patience, and she was prepared to exer- 
cise it. 

“ That the adorable Miss Newcome is not coming back 
to Newport. Too bad, don’t you know. I’ve just got 
here, don’t you see, and I feel awfully cut up about it, 
don’t you know. I don’t see what I’m going to do about 
it. It’s stunning, don’t you see.” 

“There are plenty of other pretty girls left,” said Mrs. 
Newcome, artfully ; “ in fact, much prettier than my sim- 
ple little Bella.” 

“ Oh ! but don’t you see that’s not quite fair,” said the 
Honorable Frederic, releasing his right whisker only to 
fall foul of the left one, as he turned his pale blue eyes 
on his hostess in helpless embarrassment. 

“ What isn’t fair ? ” said Mrs. Newcome, encouragingly, 
condoning an amount of awkwardness and dullness in a 
lord’s son that would have made her dismiss a footman 
in indignant haste. 

“ To say things like that, don’t you know.” 

“Why isn’t it fair ? ” Mrs. Newcome asked, with amia- 
ble patience. 


LORD RAINSFOKTH'S SON. 


127 

“Because, don’t you know, it isn’t true. That’s all 
there is about it. It’s remarkably untrue.” 

“ What isn’t true? ” 

“ About the other girls. There’s nobody left after Miss 
Newcome’s gone. Absolutely nobody.” 

“ Really now ! or are you only flattering my little girl ? ” 

“ Pon honor ! ” The Honorable Frederic clasped his 
hand to his heart tragically, after which it was impossible 
for the proud mother to entertain a doubt as to the 
success of her life’s work. The goal loomed bigger and 
nearer and more splendid. 

“ But, after all, Mr. Ridgway, we are not going to be out 
of each other’s reach. Of course you will come to see 
us.” 

^ “ It’s so beastly hot, don’t you know, in the city just 
now. Oh ! I say, couldn’t we just telegwaph over for the 
whole lot to come on ? This is the place to set the old 
gentleman — beg pardon, don’t you know, but wouldn’t 
your esteemed husband get better faster here than yonder 
in that bake-oven, don’t you see ? ” 

“ Mr. Newcome is very obstinate,” said Mrs. Newcome, 
sadly ; “ our men are not like you Englishmen. They 
are never content with what they have. Must add a 
little more, just a little more, to the pile, until they break 
down under the pressure and leave their helpless families 
to get on as best they can.” 

“ Astonishing ! yes, weally astonishing, don’t you know.” 

“Yes, and I have tried so hard to persuade my dear 
husband of the folly of adding to an income already more 
than sufficient for our modest wants ; but he has gotten 
into the groove that all New York business men get into 
sooner or later, and I am afraid he is beginning to suffer 


128 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


for it. I feel very anxious about him.” Mrs. Newcome 
lifted her fine shoulders with a shrug of helpless distress, 
then bent over to throw her scented cambric handkerchief 
over Rex’s nose and ears. “ Poor little dear. He is so 
thin-skinned, and the flies are so abominable here.” 

“ Can I be of any service ? ” Mr. Ridgway said, suddenly 
assuming a more upright position and giving his whiskers 
a reprieve. 

“To dear little Rex?” — Mrs. Newcome’s inquiry was 
quite natural, but she quickly saw her mistake — “ or to 
myself in my deserted condition ? You are too good. 
No, thank you. I have my maid, and it is nothing of a 
trip from here to the city. Of course you will come to 
see us when you do get back to New York, that is, unless 
that sprightly Miss Dawson makes you quite forget my 
sedate little Bella, which she can do easily enough.” 

“ Wemarkable ! ” 

“ Miss Dawson ? ” 

“ Yes. ’Fraid of her, don’t you know. Aw — well — 
guess I’ll be going now. You are busy, don’t you see.” 
He was on his feet at last, with his hat clasped tragically 
to his bosom in preparation for a faultless exit. 

“You’ll convey my extwemest wegwets to Miss Newcome, 
and you will say to her — yes, don’t you know, I mean it all 
too — that Newport’s no better than the desert of Sahara 
now that she’s not here. I mean it too, don’t you see.” 

“ You are awfully good to mean it, I’m sure,” said 
Mrs. Newcome, pursuing him with her sweetest smile 
until he was no longer visible. 

Then she returned to her note-writing with renewed 
energy. Perhaps, after all, there was something providen- 
tial in Bella’s being called away just at this juncture, 


LORD RAINSFORTH'S SON. 


129 


There was nothing like tantalizing a man a little, and as 
they were already in the last half of September, such a 
very little while would elapse before she could reopen the 
campaign with all the aid of her home arsenal. 

Things were working quite to suit Mrs. Newcome, and 
her satisfaction overflowed in a sudden burst of tender- 
ness for Rex. Picking him up all coiled as he was, she 
pressed his cylindrical body close to her velvet basque in 
a series of ecstatic little hugs and informed him confiden- 
tially that she couldn’t have asked for things to work 
any smoother. 

Rex regarded her gravely out of his excessively popped 
eyes, sniffed at the stationery on the table to discover if 
it had any succulent qualities, yawned disgustedly, and 
curled up for another nap. 

9 


CHAPTER XIII. 


MRS. NEWCOME RESUMES OPERATIONS. 

Mrs. Newcome was a shrewd strategist. She never 
lost sight of a proposed move or of any useful implement 
for furthering her designs. By the time she had been 
four quiet weeks at home, a period of time which she re- 
garded as sacrificed on the altar of conjugal necessity, 
she resumed operations in a subdued fashion. Mr. New- 
come, whose peculiarly nervous condition gave the doctors 
much matter for grave consideration, had been quite at 
himself for several days, and she intended to improve the 
interim. She had been agreeably surprised to find, as she 
put it confidentially to her husband, “ such a good foun- 
dation laid in Florine.” 

“ Good foundation for what, my dear ? It seems to 
me that a fair and goodly structure has already been 
reared there on a foundation of bravery and truth.” 

“ You and Bella positively gush over that girl,” said 
Mrs. Newcome, irritably ; “ if she hadn’t a pretty well 
balanced head it certainly would have been turned long 
before this. I mean a foundation for a cultured and ele- 
gant woman of society. Now that I consider Bella’s 
future so happily provided for, I really feel as if I could 
spare some time in the improvement of poor Nanny’s 
daughter. In her present shape she is not at all cal- 
culated to attract attention in the proper direction.” 

130 


MRS. NE WCOME RESUMES OPERA TIONS. 1 3 1 

“ What is the proper direction, my dear ? ” Mr. New- 
come looked at his strategic wife almost apprehensively. 
“ I hope you won’t make her any less natural than she is. 
I think she is positively refreshing in her spirited truth- 
fulness.” 

“ Which may or may not be construed into a reflection 
upon your own daughter ; and wife too, for the matter of 
that,” she added, with an acrid smile ; “ but if you call that 
hoydenish laugh of Florine’s ‘ spirited truthfulness,’ and 
her terrible trick of mimicking people as soon as their 
backs are turned, a desirable trait in a young girl, I must 
beg leave to differ with you ; and I shall certainly do my 
best to correct a great many crudities in her.” 

Her talent for mimicry is so marked,” said Mr. 
Newcome, smiling at the memory of Flo’s reproduction of 
the Honorable Ridgway’s simper and walk, “that it is 
scarcely to be wondered she enjoys the exercise of it. 
Lord Rainsforth’s son, for instance.” 

“ I think she behaved shockingly,” said Mrs. Newcome, 
reddening at the memory of it. “ Young Ridgway very 
properly called to pay his respects and to let me know he 
was in town, and she turned him into a butt actually before 
his very face.” 

“ I don’t think he was at all conscious of it, my dear.” 
Mr. Newcome was loyal in his defence of Flo. 

“ He was too polite to show it,” said Mrs. Newcome, 
equally loyal to her lordling ; but that does not lessen 
the indiscretion on her part. I am glad to see that Al- 
gernon did not at all approve of her. In fact, he seems not 
to be very deeply impressed with our young Texas friend. 
But I mean that he shall be. He absents himself on 
every pretext. But I’d rather he should begin that way.” 


132 


THA 'T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“What, more schemes on hand?’' Mr. Newcome 
raised his hands aghast. “ My dear, I beseech you, in 
this case at least, to let nature take her course.” 

Mrs. Newcome raised her hands in her turn, and turned 
their palms outward with a gesture of despair. “ Did 
ever a woman labor more thanklessly than I ? Letting 
nature take her course means to let the house tumble 
down about one’s head sometimes, Mr. Newcome. Were 
you only frightening me the other night when you told me 
you were in such financial distress that I must be pre- 
pared to give up this house at a moment’s notice ? ” 

“ I was not saying it to frighten you, my dear. I have 
never taken such an unworthy advantage of you since you 
have been my wife. Things are in a terrible snarl with 
me, Henrietta. I don’t propose to inflict a full statement 
of my difficulties upon you, but — ” 

Mrs, Newcome clasped her begemmed hands violently 
to her ears. “ No, no, I implore you not. I could not 
possibly mend matters for you, and it would only be tor- 
ture to me.” 

“ You are right,” said her husband, bitterly ; “ you 
could not possibly mend matters and I have no desire to 
torture you.” 

“ I could not mend them in your clumsy man fashion, I 
mean. But I intend to mend them in my own.” 

“And that is ? ” 

“ By bringing about a marriage between Florine and 
our son. You know her father is ridiculously wealthy for 
a plain Texas planter, with no tastes above a fine Jersey 
cow or a prize potato, and Florine is the only child. I 
know it would delight Nanny’s heart to have our children 
united.” 


MJ?S. NEWCOME RESUMES OPERA T/OA^S. 1 33 

“ I see, I see,-’ said Mr. Newcome ; “ we are all to 
combine and spread a net for this unwary little humming- 
bird that has flown unwittingly into a snare.” 

Mrs. Newcome looked her husband over from head to 
foot in the most chilling silence ; finally she said, bitingly, 
“ I do wonder where you got your inexhaustible stock of 
sentimentality from, Mr. Newcome ? If I had been a 
malleable sort of woman, which fortunately for my children 
I am not, this whole establishment would have been re- 
duced to a poultice long ago. But I really did not come 
in here ” — they were in Mr. Newcome’s private study — 
“ to exchange ethical opinions. I wanted to tell you that 
Thursday evening I am going to give quite an informal 
little reception to such of our friends as have gotten back 
to town. I intend it as a sort of dress rehearsal for 
Florine. If she is to be seen everywhere with Bella and 
me this winter she really must be taken in hand, or the 
whole family will be put to the blush.” 

“ Not by Miss Dorsey. Rest easy on that score, wife.” 

Here Andrew intruded to say that Mr. Roberts was in 
the parlor wanting to see Mr. Newcome alone. 

“ Bring him in here, Andrew,” his master said, his face 
growing several shades paler. 

“ I shall wait to speak to him,” said Mrs. Newcome, 
“and tell him of my plan for Thursday.” 

“ Hadn’t we better talk that over a little farther, my 
dear ? ” said her husband, dropping his voice to an 
anxious undertone, as he heard the firm, quick footfall of 
the junior partner approaching. 

“ No use in the world talking it over, such an informal 
little affair ! ” Her own voice was purposely audible, and 
she went on with her sentence as she put her plump hand 


t34 


That girl from texas. 

into Mr. Roberts’: Just a few friends, Mr. Roberts, on 
Thursday evening to make a little pleasure for Miss 
Dorsey. The dear child has had such a stupid time, 
what with her coming on in the dead of summer and that 
remarkable accident. I call it remarkable, not that I 
have heard one word about it. I wouldn’t let them tell 
me about it, though Mason was frantic to go into all the 
horrible details. I said as long as it was past and over 
there was no use harrowing myself up over it. The Van- 
derhoofs all have such terribly sensitive nerves that I 
really consider it a duty I owe myself to avoid shocks of 
that character whenever I can. Don’t you ? ” 

“Undoubtedly, madam,” said Mr. Roberts, standing 
respectfully before her, hat in hand. 

“ I know you two naughty men are anxious to get rid 
of me,” she said, airily touching him with the feathers of 
her fan. “ You must certainly be on hand Thursday. 
And do, if you have any influence with that wretched 
husband of mine, persuade him to take a little rest. 
He is just wearing himself to a shadow. And for what, 
I should like to know ? Now, I really am gone this time.” 
She included them both in one condescending smile and 
swept gracefully out of the room. 

“ Well ? ” 

Mr. Newcome uttered the word questioningly as he 
pointed to a chair by his side and looked up into the 
junior partner’s face, his own working visibly from agita- 
tion. 

“ I am not going to sit down. I haven’t time. I came 
here to tell you that Neuman has agreed to take up all 
those forged bonds and to hold them in his own hands 
until further notice. I did not want you to be kept on the 


MRS. NEWCOME RESUMES OPERATIONS. 1 35 

rack unnecessarily. I am working the thing as quietly 
as possible. We must have time, and that is what I have 
gained by concentrating the thing in Neuman’s hands. 
I have heard of a small lot in another quarter Let me 
look at the numbers please ; I can’t just lay my hand on 
the memoranda I kept.” 

Mr. Newcome opened his desk and handed out a 
small book. “ Remember your promise, Roberts. I am 
to be notified of each step as taken. I can see no honor- 
able way out of this thing, and I will not consent to 
take any dishonorable one.” 

“ Am I likely to ask that of you ? ” the junior partner 
asked, looking at him almost sternly ; then he relented 
suddenly at sight of the worn look on the old man’s face, 
and placing his hand on his shoulder, said gently : 

“ My friend, I honor you and I love your daughter. If 
there is any way to save the Newcome name from the 
disgrace that threatens it, I deserve small credit for de- 
voting my time and energy to the task. I am but a sel- 
fish dog at best.” 

“ What a world it would be if there were plenty of 
just such selfish dogs !” said the senior partner, returning 
the kindly pressure of the younger man’s hand and smil- 
ing gratefully into his face. 

Mr. Roberts did not sit down. He only wanted the 
numbers of certain of the forged bonds : these obtained 
he left the house without even inquiring for the young 
ladies. The work that lay before him was too urgent to 
admit of dalliance just then. The lot of bonds which he 
proposed to unearth was in the possession of a small 
money-lender in an obscure down-town street. To 
expedite matters he took a cab, and soon found himself 
within the dingy precincts of the broker’s shop. 


136 


THA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


A clerk came forward officiously to wait on him. Cus- 
tomers of Mr. Roberts’ elegant appearance were not com- 
mon with them and must not be kept waiting. 

“ I wish to see your employer,” he said, declining 
parley with the subordinate. 

“ He’s busy with a young lady he pointed one 
thumb towards the counter behind his back. 

Roberts instinctively glanced in that direction, started, 
and looked more curiously at the slight, delicate form of a 
young lady who was closely veiled, and who, standing with 
her back towards him, was all unconscious of his keen 
scrutiny. A display of valuable jewels was spread on 
the case before her. She was listening, when he first 
turned, to the pawnbroker’s voluble depreciation of her 
jewels. When she spoke her voice was tremulous and 
frightened, but it put to flight Mr. Roberts’ last doubt 
as to her identity. 

Without pausing to take into consideration the effect 
upon her of any abrupt interference on his part, he 
walked quietly across to where she stood and laid his 
hand upon the jewels on the case. Bella started violently, 
but recognizing the hand almost before she heard the 
quiet tones of his voice, she drew her veil closer down 
over her face to hide the tears of shame and mortification 
that sprang into her eyes in spite of herself. 

“ Permit me to transact this business for you,” Roberts 
said ; “ I think I can do it more satisfactorily. In the 
meantime you will find a carriage at the door that will 
take you directly home.” 

She did not question his right to control her actions, 
but obeyed him like a little child, even to the entering the 
cab and giving the driver his orders to take her immedi- 
ately home. 


MRS. NEWCOME RESUMES OPERATIONS. I 37 


Scarcely an hour had- elapsed when Andrew brought 
a heavy sealed package to her room door. She opened it 
and found her jewels there intact ; not one was missing. 
At which her tears flowed still more freely. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE CORD SNAPS. 

“ I FEEL uncommonly like a criminal whose handcuffs 
have been removed to permit of his taking a little exer- 
cise,” said Mr. Newcome to himself, with rather ghastly 
facetiousness, as he tied on his white cravat and surveyed 
himself in full dress for his wife’s “ informal reception.” 
The matter of his toilet disposed of, he went down-stairs 
hoping to find Bella already in the parlor. 

His head felt strangely full to-night, and compressed 
somewhat, as if its over-fulness was being kept within 
bounds by iron hoops. It would be a pity to spoil his 
wife’s pleasure by one of those nervous attacks that came 
on so frequently of late ; so he would just tell Bella, pri- 
vately, that if he began to ramble on in that inconsequent 
fashion which he was aware of, but seemed unable to con- 
trol, she must say to him : “ Papa, green grow the rushes,” 
and he would take it as a hint, and retire. A little exer- 
cise of will-power, perhaps, was all that was necessary^ 
and as this thing was gotten up on Flo’s account, he was 
doubly anxious it should go off nicely. 

But there was no Bella visible when he entered the 
brilliantly lighted parlors. They were quite empty of 
people, in fact, and so heavy with the odor of hot-house 
plants that they oppressed him. He stepped out on the 
short stone balcony that skirted the back parlor, and 


THE CORD SHADS. 


139 


breathed a little freer. It was cool and dark out there, 
and he was invisible to Mrs. Newcoine, who presently 
swept in, looking superb in her long satin train, with rich 
billows of real old lace swelling around her white, full 
shoulders and plump arms. 

She made the circuit of the long rooms, slowly, never 
omitting to pause slightly before the many mirrors she 
encountered in the transit. With an air of incomplete 
satisfaction with herself or her surroundings, she finally 
subsided on a divan. Mr. Newcome, following her move- 
ments from his darkened stand-point, smiled bitterly, and 
stepped into the light. 

“ Ah, Robert — :you down ? How do I look ? ” 

“ Superb, my dear ; superb, as usual.” 

“ You have never seen this dress. Ferneski sent it 
on to me after I left the city. I call it one of her tri- 
umphs.” 

“ Doubtless ; yes, superb. Where is Bella, by the 
way?” Mr. Newcome asked, more conscious of the in- 
creasing pain in his head than of Madame Ferneski’s 
latest triumph in satin. 

“ She is dressing now,” said Mrs. Newcome, with 
emphasis on the tense ; ‘‘ but I must say my family has 
undeveloped, unsuspected talents for contrariness. She 
has been out of the house almost all the afternoon. 
Came in just in time for dinner ; dressed herself more 
like a seamstress than a lady. Looks tired and dowdy. 
Spent nearly an hour over Florine, trying to persuade her 
not to wear a hideous yellow silk dress that is among her 
finery, and wound up by compelling her to wear the very 
dress I had laid aside for her own use to-night— a lovely 


I 


140 


T/IA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


tulle and pink surah combination that she has never had 
on except to try the fit.” 

“That was prettily done,” said Mr. Newcome, with a 
glowing smile ; “ it shows our Bella’s unselfishness 
finely.” 

“ It was stupidly done,” said Mrs. Newcome, continu- 
ing irritably, as Bella herself appeared in the door-way ; 
“ now look at her, please. Wouldn’t anybody think she 
was a milliner’s apprentice gotten in by mistake .? or some 
poor young music teacher invited just for the sake of her 
music .? Bella, you certainly are a trial to my nerves.” 

“ Well, then, just imagine I am the poor young music 
teacher ; I might be something a great deal worse, you 
know, mother. But this is Flo’s debut in New York 
society, and it would be very bad form for me to try to 
outshine her in my own house.” 

“ Is that the reason you are dressed so very simply, my 
daughter .? not even a ribbon or a jewel, and in that 
extremely plain white dress ? ” Mr. Newcome thought it 
was a very fine reason, if it was, and felt quite a glow of 
pride in her for it. 

She looked tired and harassed, as she turned her lips 
up to him, with a child-like demand for a kiss. “ No, 
papa, don’t give me too much credit. I do want Flo to 
have the best of it to-night ; but as for my jewelry, I 
never intend to wear any of it again until you come to me 
and say, ‘ My daughter, we are free from debt, and I am 
a new man.’ Oh, it makes me hate myself, father, to 
think of the past few years of my life.” 

The tears sprang to her eyes. Mrs. Newcome made 
one of those gestures of despair, which set the diamonds 
on her hands to flashing in the gas-light. 


THE CORD SNAPS. 


14I 

“ For mercy’s sake, Bella, don’t add a red nose and 
swollen eyelids to your other demerits to-night ; save your 
sentimentality for to-morrow morning, I beseech you. 
Oh, that laugh ! it will certainly be the death of me.” 

This sudden digression was caused by hearing Flo 
laughing long, merrily, and clearly in the hall. 

“ It is like the singing of an uncaged bird,” said Mr. 
Newcome, turning toward the door by which this daunt- 
less Texas maiden must enter the room. 

“ Perhaps,” Mrs. Newcome retorted, with icy disap- 
proval, “ but I have no fancy for uncaged song-birds in my 
parlor on my reception evenings. Bella, you must man- 
age her this evening. I am not equal to the task of 
repression.” 

Flo was upon them now, followed by R. Algernon, whose 
classic features were completely distorted with rage. 
Miss Dorsey held clasped in her hands a huge bouquet of 
yellow chrysanthemums, which clashed torturingly with 
the delicate pink of her dress. Mr. Newcome held a 
bouquet also. It was composed of white and pink buds, 
and harmonized admirably with the young lady’s toilet. 
He wore a baffled look, and cast appealing glances at his 
mother and sister, letting them know in pantomime that 
his flowers had been rejected. 

“ He is telling you in the language of the mutes,” said 
Flo, comfortably settling herself on the divan and waving 
her chrysanthemums in the direction of her escort, “ that 
I have outraged his finest feelings and the usages of good 
society by preferring these to those.” She sniffed vigor- 
ously at her yellow flowers and glanced contemptuously 
at Algernon’s dainty buds. 

“ But, Flo, darling,” said Bella, taking the slighted pink 


142 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


buds from her brother’s clasp, “ you don’t really think 
those flowers go as well with your dress as these ? ” 

“ Of course I don’t.” She elevated her brows comically. 
“ I know that these quite kill the color in my dress, and I 
think they are perfectly hideous.” 

“ Then why cling to them so tenderly ?” said Algernon, 
looking at the radiant girl with an expression of genuine 
admiration that Mrs. Newcome intercepted with pleasure. 

“ Because I promised,” said Flo, dropping her eyes 
coyly upon the obnoxious bouquet in her lap, “ and I 
never break a promise.” There was fun lurking in her 
eyes, but the white lids veiled it so completely that noth- 
ing but the strangely solemn words reached her auditors. 

“ Promised who ? ” 

“ Promised what ? ” 

“ Promised when ? ” 

Mrs. Newcome, Bella, and young Mr. Newcome asked 
simultaneously. 

“ Promised Tom,” she said, glancing roguishly into Mrs. 
Newcome’s face, “ that I would never appear in public 
without wearing his favorite flowers. I promised him be- 
fore I left home — and this is my first appearance in pub- 
lic, so I’ll carry the hideous things if it breaks my 
heart.” 

“ But why didn’t you get white ones ? ” Bella asked, 
anxious but amused. 

“ I sent Susanna out for them,” said Flo, with another 
one of her ringing laughs, “ and as I just said ‘ chrysan- 
themums,’ I suppose she got her own favorite color. I 
thought they were bad enough, but it was Mr. Newcome’s 
despairing face that set me off so in the hall. It was just 
delicious.” 


THE CORD SNAPS. 


143 

“ ‘ Set me off/ my dear ? ” Mrs. NewCome tapped her 
gently on the shoulder with her fan. 

“ Oh ! is that slang, too .? Dear me, I’m quite sure my 
communications will soon be reduced to yea, yea, and 
nay, nay.” 

“You say that you promised ‘Tom’ before leaving 
home,” young Mr. Newcome asked, laying his pretty buds 
alongside of the chrysanthemums in an insinuating man- 
ner. 

“ Yea,” said Flo, looking at him solemnly with unlaugh- 
ing eyes. 

“ And the fortunate Tom, I suppose, is the possessor of 
your conscience, is he ? ” 

“ Nay.” 

“ Flo, you are a goose,” said Miss Newcome, possess- 
ing herself of both bouquets ; “ you shan’t make yourself 
ridiculous.” 

“ Yea.” But condensation was not Flo’s forte. “ Don’t 
take them away from me, darling Bella,” she cried, tragic- 
ally, “ or if you do, leave me two of the biggest and yel- 
lowest.” 

“ What for ? ” Bella asks, holding up two enormous 
specimens, at which their owner clutched eagerly as she 
answered laughingly : 

“ For my Lord Ridgway’s button-hole.” 

“ Florine ! ” Mrs. Newcome’s voice was full of horror, 
but Bella entered no demurrer. She only said, with a 
"smile, as she handed back the reconstructed bouquet, 
“ He’s Mr. Ridgway, Flo; Lord Rainsforth’s son.” 

“ Oh ! I see ; it’s a speculation in futures,” said the 
girl from the cotton region, audaciously, as she buried 
her saucy face in the sweet-smelling buds, and glanced 
demurely in Mrs. Newcome’s direction. 


144 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


Mr. Newcome had walked away during this lively pas- 
sage of words, and Bella, more constantly anxious about 
him than she had admitted in words to anyone, looked 
around for him. He was again on the stone balcony, 
standing motionless, staring earnestly down into the street 
below. 

“ Father,” — she slipped her hand within his arm and 
leaned her soft cheek against his coat sleeve, — “ isn’t 
this stupid reception going to tire you too much ? ” 

He started slightly and changed his position so as to 
put one arm around her slim waist. He had never once 
taken his eyes from the street below. He answered, 
vaguely and absently: “Thank you, my sweet one, no; 
we will give Florine a nice evening, won’t we ? But if my 
stupid head gets very bad and you see any signs of my 
breaking down, you just come to me and say, ‘ Papa, 
green grow the rushes’ ; Fll know what you mean by it ; 
and then, 5'ou see, dearie, I can go off quietly by myself 
without destroying the fun. Don’t you see ? ” 

“ I see, papa.” The words came to him steadily, but he 
could feel the dry sob that convulsed her form, and he 
clasped her yet a little closer. 

“ Not that I anticipate anything special, my dear, but 
these strange attacks of late come on unexpectedly, and 
I don’t seem to have as much power of resistance as I 
ought to have. Do you see that man down there ? ” he 
asked, in a changed voice, pointing one long, thin finger 
towards a motionless form on the other side of the street. 
“ Yes, papa; but what of it ? ” she asked, anxiously. 

“ I was out here half an hour ago,” Mr. Newcome said, 
“ and he stood there just the same way. I don’t think he 
has moved a muscle since,” 


THE CORD SNAPS. 


H5 

“ Well, what of that ? Some poor tramp, I suppose, who 
will recall better times in his own life by watching the 
fine company come and go to-night. He sees the house 
is lighted up for a reception, and it interests him.” 

“ Perhaps you are right,” said her father ; “ don’t forget, 
daughter, ‘ Green grow the rushes.’ ” He turned rest- 
lessly towards the brilliant interior again, and Bella heard 
him mutter to himself, “ They would hardly think it neces- 
sary to watch the house — I’ve given my word of honor.” 

But the guests were beginning to arrive, and the masks 
must all be adjusted for the social drama arranged by Mrs. 

^ Newcome for this night only. Herself the impersonation 
of a “ merry wife,” she stood, receiving her guests, with 
a beaming countenance. Who would have dared say 
that tragedy and not farce had been put upon the boards 
by Mrs. Robert Newcome for the entertainment of New 
York society that night } But so it was. 

The night w'ore on and the reception waxed a trifle 
wearisome to all, even to the flushed and triumphant 
young debictante., whose content reached its acme at the 
moment when she sent my Lord Rainsforth’s son away 
from her side, the flushed and helpless wearer of an enor- 
mous yellow chrysanthemum in his lapel. 

“ He’s wearing Tom’s livery,” she said to herself, in 
solitary levity, as she complacently tore the other flower 
into fragments. “ I hate pretension, and he’s just a great 
big bundle of it.” 

She was so tired. She wondered if everybody else 
was. She looked about to see how Mr. Newcome was 
enduring the heat and this incessant hum of human 
voices, so curiously suggestive to the girl from the coun- 
try of a bee-hive in swarming time. 

10 


46 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


At that moment he was standing by the mantelpiece 
talking to a group of men, or rather listening to 
them. 

She saw him suddenly raise one hand to his head, 
and the next instant Bella had glided swiftly to his side 
from, it seemed to Flo, an invisible point. How 
strangely the old man looked at her as she laid her hand 
on his arm and said something to him in a very low voice ! 
His eyes looked glassy and had a confused stare in them. 
Bella was evidently repeating the words. He understood 
now, for he raised his head with stately courtesy and 
waved his hand to the men who had stopped their talk 
about stocks and bonds in a solemn hush of expectation. 
Instinctively every man there felt the shadowy wings of 
an awful disaster. Mr. Roberts’ head was suddenly ob- 
truded over the shoulder of the man standing nearest to 
their host. If he could only get the poor old man away 
from all those staring eyes! — but he was too late. Mr. 
Newcome’s glassy eyes were fastened upon him resent- 
fully. He even raised a hand to emphasize his resent- 
ment against his best friend. His usually gentle voice 
rang out harshly through his elegant parlors, startling his 
wife’s fashionable company into terrified attention : 

“ Roberts, you are a traitor. You are having the house 
watched after I gave you my word of honor as a gentle- 
man not to leave town.” Then the ringing voice sank 
almost to a coo of tenderness as he put one trembling 
hand into Bella’s : “ Yes, my darling, green grow the 
rushes.” 

They were all clustered about him now. Mr. Roberts 
had his strong arm about the old man’s shoulders, and 
was leading him from the room ; his white head was droop- 


THE CORD SWATS. 1 47 

ing listlessly, and all the resentment had died out of 
his gentle eyes. 

“ Robert !” Mrs. Nevvcome caught his hand tragically. 
“Husband!” He recognized his wife’s voice and 
stopped. 

“ I owe you an apology, my dear, for leaving so early, 
but daughter says ‘Green grow the rushes.’ Yes, Rob- 
erts, I’m coming, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, 
good-night.” 

“ What does it mean ? ” 

The junior partner heard this question asked in a quer- 
ulous female voice just in front of him. 

“ It means,” he answered, in a solemn voice, laying his 
hand on the bowed white head of his friend, “ that the 
cord that has borne a mighty strain has snapped at last, 
and that a noble soul walks in darkness.” 

And only the sound of women’s sobs followed the sad 
procession from the rooms. 


CHAPTER XV. 


A SLIP TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 

If Mr. Algernon Newcome’s wooing of Rose Neuman 
had not been of that spontaneous and ardent sort that ex- 
acting young women consider necessary, it had sped suc- 
cessfully, and the morning on which it was to culminate 
in matrimony eventually dawned — not brightly nor cheer?- 
fully ; the day itself seemed to lack that spontaneity and 
ardor that the most unexacting ones of earth desire for a 
bridal omen. 

And Rose Neuman was one of the unexacting ones. 
She had been reared and educated in almost monastic 
seclusion. Her brother had never quite satisfied himself 
that this world was anything better than a very clumsy 
sort of cage for a very radiant bird of passage, that had 
happed upon it. In fact his sister was the sentiment of 
his life. She had been his refuge from the din and 
wear of his coarser money-making hours ; she had been 
the one thing pure and undefiled that was his ver^^ own ; 
she had been able always to make him forget his utmost 
vexation or disappointment with a song or a laugh or a 
kiss. 

And now the morning had dawned when he was, to all 
seeming, giving over the keeping of this rare treasure to 
a man who was absolutely in his power for fraudulent 
transactions. Absolutely worthless in every respect ex- 

148 


A SLIP TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 


149 


cepting the minor one of great physical beauty, and the 
doubtful one of a pedigree unsoiled by the smirching touch 
of a single money-maker. 

“ Wbat do they take me for ? ” he asked of the empty 
room, bringing his fist savagely down upon his own knee. 
He was in his own handsome city library. In half 
an hour Newcome and a minister would be with them. 
The marriage was to be a perfectly private one, only the 
minister, himself, and Mrs. Lawrence, besides the high 
contracting parties. Since that one momentous interview 
in the dingy lodging-house in the suburbs of Newport he 
had held himself severely aloof in the affair. What 
promises of secrecy Newcome had extracted or his sister 
had granted he neither knew nor cared : his conduct 
would have seemed monstrously inconsistent to one un- 
suspicious of the fact that he must ’have a reserved card 
in his hand. He had, however, and the hour for playing 
it had almost struck. Rose had promised him she would 
come to him as soon as she was dressed for the ceremony, 
and presently she glided into his presence, looking very 
lovely and very solemn in her bridal array, which was 
absolutely devoid of any ostentatious display. 

“ I am come, brother,” she said, putting both arms 
around his neck and pressing her trembling lips fervently 
to his forehead. 

He held her off to look at her, and his lustrous eyes 
travelled slowly, lovingly, and lingeringly from the glossy 
black hair that was simply arranged in the fashion of the 
day, without veil or flower to heighten or to lessen its 
own sheeny beauty, down over the flushed cheeks, the 
sweet, tremulous mouth, the softly rounded form, every 
curve showing through the closely-fitting dress of pearl- 


50 


TBA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


gray satin, down to the daintily shod foot, that was tap- 
ping the Smyrna rug under his chair with impatience at 
this prolonged inspection. It was an ordeal. 

“ Do I suit you, Adolphe ? ” She raised her eyes with 
an attempt at merriment that sat badly upon her face at 
that moment, which was to her fuller of trembling appre- 
hension than of that pure joy it ought to have brought. 
There was an underlying and unsatisfactory something in 
this, her first love affair, that Rose had been vaguely con- 
scious of, but in her own purity and simplicity had found 
it unfathomable, almost intangible. 

“ I suppose all girls feel so when they are first engaged,” 
was the why she had tried to comfort herself for lack of 
any other comforter. This was one of the things that 
neither Adolphe nor her Aunt Rebecca could help her 
with, and whom else had she besides ? 

Adolphe did not answer her question in words ; he drew 
her close within the shelter of his arms and kissed her 
many times. Then he held her off at arm’s length again : 

“ Are you happy. Rose, my dear little sister ; perfectly 
satisfied with this step you are about to take.?” 

“'Yes,” she answered ; but the yes was neither full nor 
prompt nor decided enough to suit him. 

“ Will you mind answering me a few very plain ques- 
tions, Rose ; may I for the last time play catechist .? ” 

“ Yes,” she said ; and drawing a chair close up to 
his own, her brother placed her in it and kissed her 
again before speaking. His manner was unusually 
tender to her this morning — apologetic even, we might 
have called it, if there had been any room for such feel- 
ing. 

“ I wanted to ask 5^ou what it was that first attracted 


A SLIP TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 151 

you to the man you have promised to marry this morn- 
ing.” 

The ready blood mounted to Rose’s smooth temples, 
and her small gloved hands twitched nervously. She 
raised her eyes deprecatingly to her brother’s face. 

“You do not like him, Adolphe. That is the shadow 
to my happiness. I have felt it all along.” 

“ What an exceedingly irrelevant answer, ” Mr. Neu- 
man said, laying one of his hands over the little trembling 
ones that threatened destruction to her pretty lace 
handkerchief. “Try to be a little more categorical, 
my Rose.” 

“ Mr. Newcome is very handsome and very refined, and 
he talked to me about music, which is my passion, and 
about flowers, which I love, and about other countries 
where he is almost as much at home as here.” 

“ Botany Bay would be particularly home-like for him, I 
should imagine,” he said, almost under his breath. 

“ Why ? ” Rose was looking at him with wide-open 
eyes. 

He laughed mirthlessly, and asked, sharply : “ Well, 
what other qualifications has he for a good husband ? 
His refinement may be simply his company manners, you 
know ; his good looks he may lose any day by sickness or 
by accident. He will not talk to Jiis wife always about 
the music, which is her passion, nor about the flowers that 
she loves almost as well. Our flower-loves belong to 
our untrammelled years, little one.” 

“ Oh ! Adolphe, how cruel to croak so within an hour 
of my marriage ! ” 

“ I am not croaking. I am performing a disagreeable 
and necessary duty. I have put it off to the present mo- 


152 


TJIA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


ment for reasons that I consider ample and satisfactory. 
I will tell you frankly that I had hoped a more inti- 
mate view of Mr. R. Algernon Newcome would have 
cured you of what I imagined was a girl’s romantic fancy 
for what appeared unattainable to her. I thought when 
the toy was yours to have and to hold it would meet with 
the fate of all your previous toys, you would tire of it as 
soon as you discovered its woodenness and its empti- 
ness.” 

“ He is neither wooden nor empty, ” Rose said, flash- 
ing out in defence of her chosen one ; “ and you are 
simply barbarous.” 

“ If you were convinced that Newcome was not a good 
man, Rose, would it make any difference with you? 
Women are such illogical creatures that they sometimes 
waste their best affections on criminals.” 

“ Criminals ! ” She repeated the word, while a startled 
look came into her innocent face. 

“ Yes, criminals. Would you love Mr. Newcome, Rose, 
if you did not think him a good man ? ” 

“ No.” She raised her head very proudly. 

“ Would you love him and want to marry him if you 
were convinced that he was a dishonest man ?” 

“ No.” The startled look of inquiry never once left 
her face, although it was blanching now to a deadly 
pallor. 

“ What would you do if I were to put into your hands 
convincing proofs that this man has forged his own 
father’s name to spurious bonds and raised money on 
them ? ” 

“ I would say ” — she spoke very slowly, clasping and 
unclasping her hands at each word, not looking at him. 


A SLIP TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 


153 


but far away beyond him ; perhaps into the desolated 
pathway of her own untrod future — “that it was no hard- 
ship to give up such a lover. I would say that I could 
not understand why the brother who pretends to love me 
so dearly should not have told me this in the beginning 
instead of in the end. I would say that I could not 
understand why you should involve m^ in this disgrace.” 

“ That will soon be made as clear as noonday, my dar- 
ling. ” There was a gleam of triumph in his eyes as he 
turned them upon Rose, but it melted into pure pity for 
the stony calm that sat so proudly upon that young, sweet 
face. “ Wait for me here a second.” 

It seemed to Rose he was gone an eternity — long 
enough for her to make a swift, torturing review of the 
past few months, when she had lived so exclusively in 
dreams of the radiant future which Adolphe had blotted out 
with one cruel touch of his hand. Her life-long habit of 
childlike dependence on her brother made her accept- 
ance of his strange hints instantaneous and crushing ; but 
when she saw him coming back to her with Algernon by 
his side, looking fairly and ignorantly happy of the sword 
over his head, carrying his handsome head in the proud 
poise that was simply with him an inherited trick of the 
Vanderhoofs, and not, as she vainly imagined, the sure in- 
dication of a conscience at ease with itself, she sprang 
forward with both hands outstretched, crying to him 
eagerly : 

“ Say it is not so, Algernon. Tell my brother he has 
been deceived. Oh, my love, my love, tell me that 
your hands are not unclean with fraud.” 

This was not exactly the reception the groom had ex- 
pected from his waiting bride. The hand he had ex- 


154 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


tended in greeting fell limply to his side. He looked 
from the storm-tossed face of his bride to the calmer one 
of her brother. A look of deadly determination locked 
Adolphe Neuman’s strong under jaw as in a vise. A 
death-like stillness fell upon the group. In it the tumult- 
uous heaving of Rose’s tortured breath was distinctly 
audible. Mr. Neuman was untying the tape band about 
a bulky package of papers he had taken up from the 
library table. 

“I wish you to answer one question, perhaps two, in 
presence of my sister, before we go into the drawing-room, 
where the minister is waiting now to make you two one in 
the flesh.” 

A gurgle of assent, but no words from the pallid wretch 
who could not lift his gaze again to the pure, pleading 
eyes of the woman who had believed in him. 

“ Are you or are you not guilty of forging your father’s 
name upon this lot of bonds ? ” He let the scattered 
papers fall upon the library table, himself retaining only 
the loosened tape. 

Each paper fell like a stone upon Rose Neuman’s 
quivering heart. She saw the head which to her had 
always been so beautiful in its haughty poise drop igno- 
miniously before her brother’s burning gaze. She saw 
the eyes which, in her innocent worship of an idol of clay, 
had embodied the sunlight of the world for her quail with 
conscious guilt. She saw the hand that she had accepted 
as her strong staff in the journey of the years to come 
tremble like a shaken reed in the dire extremity of the 
moment. There was no doubting his guilt. She pitied 
him as she would have pitied a dog writhing in its death 
agony before her eyes. 


A SLIP TIVIXT CUP AND LIP. 


155 


“ Adolphe, have mercy ! ” she said, turning with a 
shudder from the contemplation of the craven, whose lips 
refused to frame any audible answer to that awful question. 

“ Not yet, not yet.” Neuman almost ground the words 
out between his strong white teeth. He drew his sister’s 
hand within his arm, and making a few steps forward, 
threw open the door that connected the library with the 
parlor. Algernon followed like some animal, vaguely 
conscious of impending calamity, but powerless to avert 
it. He saw, as through a veil, fat Mrs. Lawrence waddle 
forward and imprint a kiss on Rose’s cheek. He saw 
the minister come forward and take position in front of 
Adolphe and his sister, then he heard, as from a great 
distance, Neuman saying slowly and icily : 

“ Have you anything to say, my sister, before this 
ceremony begins ? ” 

And he heard Rose answer from a seemingly still 
greater distance, in a cold, sweet, far-away voice with 
not a tremor in it: “There is no ceremony to be per- 
formed. I do not intend to marry Mr. Newcome. My 
reasons for this are my own.” 

He saw fat Mrs. Lawrence’s fat hands go upward in a 
gesture of dismay and bewilderment ; he saw Rose turn and 
totter rather than walk towards her aunt ; he thought he 
heard one great sob well up from her white round throat 
before both women disappeared from the room. He saw 
the minister’s start of surprise, and heard a few words of 
muttered explanation granted him by Rose’s brother, then 
the minister too went away and he was alone with Adolphe 
Neuman. Alone with him, and in there, on the library 
table, lay the papers which were worth more than life to 
him, Algernon Newcome. 


156 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


There was murder in the boy’s heart. If he could but 
kill this malignant man standing there gloating over his 
misery, and possess himself of those papers, he would be 
happy. Yes, at that moment Adolphe Neuman’s death 
and his own possession of the forged bonds appeared to 
him elements of genuine happiness. He stood in a trance. 

“We will return to the library and finish our 
business there,” he heard his persecutor say ; and he 
turned and followed him without a thought of doing any- 
thing else. Once there he dropped into a chair and 
watched Neuman methodically gathering up the scattered 
papers and retying them with the tape. Presently he 
got the lump out of his throat sufficiently to say : 

“ I don’t understand it at all, you see.” 

“ No ? that’s what I am going to make clear to you. 
You have made a series of mistakes of late. This was but 
one of many : ” he tapped the damnatory papers with 
a cruelly deliberate forefinger, “but as a wiser than I 
has well said, ‘ it is the first step that tells.’ You have 
been living in a fools’ paradise for some months past, 
thinking that the plebeian money-lender was quite willing 
to give his sister to a forger and a scoundrel because that 
forger and scoundrel chanced to move in aristocratic social 
circles.” 

“ The fools’ paradise that you put me in,” Algernon 
said, with all the bitterness of his soul loading his voice. 
If he could only kill this man ! was his agonized reflection. 

“ Exactly. It had been in your power to boast up to 
that time of winning pretty little Rose Neuman’s heart, 
you ineffable puppy, and you did boast to the full of your 
empty heart and brain. It will now be on record that 


A SLIP TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 


57 


Miss Neuman absolutely and scornfully refused to marry 
the heir of the Vanderhoofs. An empty enough triumph 
from my stand-point, but I knew of no keener stab to 
inflict upon you. If my sister needed to be avenged in 
that line it is done. As for our further dealings, upon 
which her name will not be intruded, we will require 
more time than I can give you this morning.” 

He drew out his watch and consulted it deliberately 
before speaking again. “ I have in my possession,” he re- 
sumed, sternly, “ all of those bonds. I shall expect you 
at my down-town office to-morrow at ten o’clock, or per- 
haps we had better say at half-past ten. It is an appoint- 
ment you will find it to your material interests not to fail 
in.” 

Newcome got up and walked away without a word. 
His hat and gloves were on the hall rack. From force of 
foppish habit he glanced into the rack glass as he put 
his hat on. His own face looked unfamiliar to him. It 
was hard, and old, and drawn, and there was a villanous 
gleam in his eyes. 

“There is murder in my heart,” he almost groaned 
aloud, “ and I would kill him if I could, gladly, quickly, 
surely.” 

When' half-past ten o’clock came the next day he re- 
luctantly prepared to keep his appointment with Adolphe 
Neuman. If he had glanced over the morning’s paper, 
which his perturbed spirit had not permitted of, he would 
have been spared the trouble of riding all the way down 
to the broker’s office in Pine Street. For this para- 
graph appeared under the head of crimes and casualties ; 

“ Adolphe Neuman, aged thirty-five years, and a native 


158 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


of this city, was found foully assassinated in his bed this 
morning, by the domestic who went to his room to arouse 
him. No clew to the murderer has yet been discovered, 
nor can any reason for the perpetration of the crime be 
assigned.’^ 


CHAPTER XVI. 


AN INNOCENT VICTIM. 

“ Perfect relief from all business excitements and a 
few months of absolute physical rest and he will be quite 
himself again.” 

That was what each one of the doctors said to Mrs. 
Newcome after making a critical examination of Mr. 
Newcome’s condition. And as they were the very, best 
doctors in town, not one of whom would think of tak- 
ing anything smaller than a twenty-five dollar fee, Mrs. 
Newcome mitigated her mournful expression of anxiety 
slightly, and went about seeing that the proper conditions 
of recovery were secured to her husband. 

It was a terrible trial to her nerves — the conscious- 
ness of the awful amount of gossip this occurrence had 
provoked ; but such things often did happen, or similar 
things in families as high in the social scale as the 
Vanderhoofs. Nevertheless, it savored of the sensational, 
and Mrs. Newcome shrank with aristocratic disgust from 
any infusion of the dramatic in her domestic affairs. It 
showed a terrible weakness somewhere. It was enough 
to make one wish one had no children. Heredity was 
such a terrible thing. 

All proposals to remove her husband from the city met 
with her own and his most violent opposition ; 

“ I intend to keep this thing as quiet as possible^” 

159 


i6o 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


Mrs. Newcome said, positively, talking it over freely 
with Mr. Roberts, “ and that can best be done by his re- 
maining in rooms he is familiar with. There is the stone 
wing chamber, and here are Bella and Andrew always 
at hand to attend to him. They are the only ones he 
ever calls for, and, indeed, the only ones who can do 
anything at all with him. I am quite sure my own nerves 
would never stand the wear and tear of attendance on him, 
but Bella is young and robust, and Andrew is devoted 
to him, so here he stays.” 

The strongest argument, however, with the junior 
partner, under whose guidance the entire family had 
seemingly fallen, was the pitiful plea of the poor old 
man himself, not to be sent away from his home. 

“ You know, Roberts,” he said, leaning confidentially 
towards this fast friend, “ there’s but two places open 
to me if you take me away from here, Ludlow jail or the 
asylum. And Bella couldn’t go with me to either one. 
Oh ! I know I’m not all right here,” tapping his poor 
head almost petulantly, “ but daughter made a mistake, 
she didn’t say ‘Green grow’ the rushes ’ quite promptly 
enough, you see and then the pain in his head and all 
the rest of it would be forgotten, while he babbled on 
of the rushes that grew so greenly about his boyhood’s 
old home. 

So it was settled that Mr. Newcome w’as to be removed 
to the stone wing, and Bella and Andrew w’ere chief 
attendants. He was always docile and gentle with 
them, but Mrs. Newcome’s presence seemed to arouse all 
that was savage in his warped and darkened soul. 

He looked around his new apartment vaguely for a 
second or two after he had entered it leaning on Mr. 


AN INNOCENT P^ICriM. l6l 

Roberts’ arm, then pointing to a handsomely framed land- 
scape painting over the mantel, he turned authoritatively 
to Andrew as he pointed one lean trembling finger at it : 

“ 1 ake it down, Andrew. Take it away; it’s not paid 
for. We’re going to be honest ; yes, we’re going to be 
honest. Take it away ; take them all away.” 

Nothing appeased his increasing excitement but seeing 
Andrew mount nimbly on the step-ladder to take away 
the obnoxious pictures. Then he smiled his satisfaction 
at them all, and allowed Bella to lead him towards the 
lounge, where he soon fell into a sound sleep. She sat by 
him holding his hand. 

“ He will sleep now for an hour or two,” said Mr. 
Roberts, coming over from the bay window where he had 
been quietly waiting for -the opiate to take effect, “ and I 
want you to get all the fresh air you can. Your task is 
going to be a confining one, I am afraid.” He drew her 
with him towards the balcony that skirted the bay win- 
dow. “ We can watch him from here just as well as 
inside.” 

They were out under the starlight now, and the full 
moon was just appearing over the tops of the surrounding 
houses, casting its serene light over the little garden 
beneath them, where the china-asters and the marigolds 
gleamed as 'brightly as if their lots had been cast in iar- 
away green country spots, instead of in the meagre soil 
of a bricked-about city garden. 

In that pallid light Bella’s sweet face looked pitifully 
white and sad. The impulse to take her in his arms and 
comfort her was very strong upon him, but Mrs. Newcome 
had not been backward in telling him that Lord Rains- 
forth’s son had actually just asked her support in his 


1 62 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


approach to Mr. Newconie for permission to address their 
daughter, when that awful interruption had come. What 
she had not told him was of Bella’s absolute and often 
expressed detestation of the young man himself. He 
would not take advantage of her at a moment when grat- 
itude might incline her to listen to him more kindly than 
she might have done at a brighter moment. He would 
not take any advantage of Lord Rainsforth’s son either. 
An open field and a fair fight had been the junior part- 
ner’s mode of warfare ever since the pugilistic days of 
boyhood ; so he simply brought a chair out on the bal- 
cony for Bella, put her into it, and while he stood over her 
leaning against the coping of the window, led her on to 
talk of her summer at Newport. Not that the record of 
vapid social happenings appealed to him in any wise 
pleasantly, but he liked to hear her sweet voice, and he 
wanted an excuse to retain his gaze on her pure, gentle 
face, that was infinitely more attractive to him with its 
new look of womanly responsibility resting on it. 

“ I am sorry on Flo’s account,” she said, after a short 
silence, “ that she is with us just now ; the poor child is 
going to have a horrid winter of it here.” 

“ If you mean by ‘ horrid ’ that it is going to be devoid 
of gayety, I do not imagine Miss Dorsey will lay much 
stress upon that. She seems to possess too many sterling 
qualities to mope simply because she cannot dance.” 

“ Flo is a very superior girl,” said Bella, quite hating 
herself for the pang of jealousy she was not above feeling. 

“I think so,” said the junior partner, catching the 
faint chilliness of her endorsement with secret delight ; 
“ she is outspoken and genuine, and singularly free from 
vanity.” 


AJV INNOCENT VICTIM. 


163 


“ I am quite sure I heard papa stir,” Bella said, rising 
restlessly from the chair he had placed her in and brush- 
ing past him into the room, where she kneeled down by 
the sleeping man and buried her head in his pillows. 

Roberts followed her with a gaze of such passionate 
devotion that she would have blushed afresh over her own 
lack of faith if she could have seen it or caught his mur- 
mured : Oh, my darling, my darling ! it is hard to let this 
golden opportunity go by without improving it.” 

He slightly shifted his position so that he could get a 
better view of her graceful form. She came back to him 
presently and stood by his side under the quiet stars. 
Neither seemed inclined for words. She was the first to 
break the silence, and she did it with an attempt at levity. 

“ Mr. Roberts, you have never told me, in words, how 
tremendously shocked you were to find me in a pawn- 
broker’s shop the other day. Did I disgrace myself for 
lif^ in your eyes ? ” 

“ I am not quite sure that I was shocked,” he said, not 
immediately, however ; “ I think I was more mortified 
than anything else.” 

“ Mortified ! ” 

“ Yes. The thought that my partner’s daughter was 
so reduced for funds and preferred going to a sharper to 
appealing to me was cause for mortification, was it not 1 ” 

“You are making a mistake. I never” — then she 
stopped. 

“ Be honest with me, please.” 

He said it very earnestly, waiting quite long enough for 
her to finish her sentence, if she had any intention of 
doing so. “ Had you the slightest idea how much you 
ought to have realized on your jewels ? ” 


164 


771 A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Thousands of dollars was what 1 wanted.” 

“ For your brother.” It was an assertion, not a ques- 
tion. 

“You are ungenerous,” she said, turning her face 
quickly from him. 

“ No ; at least, I do not want to be so ; but my business 
relations with your father are such that I cannot help 
knowing of young Mr. Newcome’s embarrassments. 
Bear in mind, please, that I did not bring up this dis- 
agreeable topic ; but as it is before us, I want you to 
promise me that you will make no more attempts of 
that sort.” 

She was silent ; and he could see her slender fingers 
twining themselves /'nervously about the ribbon at her 
throat. 

“ My jewelry is useless. I shall never wear a piece of 
it again — never. I feel as if all the brightness of my 
father’s life had been transmuted into those hateful, 
glittering stones, all his strength gone into their hard 
gold settings.” 

“ Your promise, please ? ” 

“ I cannot give it.” Algernon said he must have so 
much, and I was resolved he should not distress father 
by asking him for money, just after we had all been 
spending such a recklessly extravagant summer. He 
would have gone to poor papa, too ; he seemed quite des- 
perate — said he was being dunned to death ; and I still 
think the jewelry could not have been put to better use.” 

“ It could not have been put to worse,” Roberts said, 
in a tone of intense disgust. 

“ It is shocking for me to be talking of Algie in this 
way to you. All young men, I suppose, have a reckless 


INNOCENT VICTIM. 


165 


period, and he is just passing through his. I feel like a 
most unnatural traitor. You make me hate myself.” 

“ Dismiss from your mind the fear that you have told 
me anything I did not already know. But I am waiting 
very patiently for that promise.” 

“ I cannot give it, Mr. Roberts.” 

“ That sounds desperately firm.” 

“ Don’t be angry with me, please.” She lifted a plead- 
ing face upward to him in the pallid moonlight. “ I am 
so miserable, and everything is so perplexing just now.” 

“ Poor little thing ! ” He held out his hand, and in a 
second closed it upon the softly fluttering one that 
lighted upon it like a frightened bird. “ Then I pro- 
pose an amendment — ” 

But the amendment was never proposed. A high- 
pitched voice from the room behind them startled them 
back to Mr. Newcomer’s side. He was sitting on the side 
of his lounge, pointing angrily to the rich Smyrna rug 
spread before it, and trembling with impatience. 

“ Take it away ! take them all away ! ” Andrew ap- 
peared noiselessly from the corner where he had been 
dozing, and promptly rolled the objectionable rug into a 
coil. “ Take it away, Andrew ; it isn’t paid for. We are 
going to be honest, Andrew, and walk on bare floors 
until we are out of debt. Take it away, and tha*t one too, 
and that one.” 

Andrew was permitted no re-st until the last rug had 
disappeared, leaving the polished, painted floors gleaming 
darkly under the lamplight. 

“ Now, then,” the old man smiled his satisfaction at the 
nude appearance of the floor, and nodded affectionately 
at Bella, who was sitting by him on the lounge — “now. 


TIIA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


1 66 

then, we are getting in the right groove, daughter. 
Nothing like being honest when you can’t sleep well.” 

“Here’s mamma come "to tell you good-night, father,” 
Bella said, as the door opened cautiously and Mrs. New- 
come advanced into the room timidh^ She always made 
a point of paying her last visit for the day to her hus- 
band while Mr. Roberts was still in the house. 

“ It is so unaccountable,” she said, querulously, “that 
Mr. Newcome should be so irritable with me. He was 
always one of the gentlest and most ^considerate of hus- 
bands when he was at himself. One would really think 
I was in some way responsible for his misfortunes, he 
behaves so peculiarly to me.” 

But this evening he received her with a quiet smile, 
which so emboldened her that she approached, and seat- 
ing herself on the other side of him, laid one of her 
plump white hands on his as they lay folded listlessly 
together on his dressing-gown. 

“You are feeling better to-night, dear, aren’t you?” 
she asked. 

“ Quite well, my dear, quite well ; only a little tired,” . 
he answered, gently. 

His haggard eyes rested for a second on his wife’s 
handsome face, then fell on the hand she had laid on his. 
Their expression darkened visibly. But the habit of ha- 
bitual courtesy that had been the conjugal rule of his life 
held sway measurably yet. 

“ A fair hand, wife,” he said, gallantly, “ and choice 
gems. Come, let us do a sum in arithmetic. Do you 
remember when I gave you that solitaire ? ” 

He turned the flashing diamond about on her finger. 
She would have given much to have withdrawn her hand 


A A' IN A' OC ENT VICTIM. 


167 

and fled, but it was no child’s clasp that he maintained of 
her round, white wrist, while telling off one after another 
the story of the costly gems she wore, accurately and bit- 
ingly summing up the amount they represented in money. 
It took him some minutes, and she trembled visibly under 
the ordeal. 

“A bad showing for a bankrupt’s wife, Henrietta.” 
His glance was growing darker every second, and his 
strong, bony fingers were pressing into the flesh of 
her wrist, painfully. “Take them off, wife, take them 
off. Sell them, hide them, let us be honest. It’s late, 
wife, to begin, but let’s be honest. No pictures,” his 
burning eyes scanned the bare walls, “ no soft rugs,” 
he brought both feet down noisily on the denuded floor, 
“ no diamonds ; ” he drew the rings violently from her fin_ 
gers and sent them in a metallic shower over the floor. 
“We’re going to be honest, wife.’^ 

Mrs. Newcome screamed aloud in her fright, but her 
screams only excited his fury, and it was only after her 
watch and chain and breast-pin had been hurled after the 
rings, and there was not a glitter of gold left about her 
person, that he was appeased. “ Now go,” he said, relin- 
quishing her wrist suddenly, “ and be honest.” 

“ That is what this draught is for,” said Mr. Roberts, 
quietly presenting a wine-glass to the old man’s lips, 
“ and we are all going to drink some after you.” 

The crazed man looked at his partner cunningly for a 
second, took the glass into his own hands, held it up to 
the light, eyed its contents suspiciously, and whispered 
the word “poison.” Then quicker than thought, and 
with all a maniac’s strength, he hurled it backward over 
his shoulder. Bella, standing in the line of the missile. 


TIIA T GJRL RROM TEXAS. 


1 68 

stepped quickly backward, but it only increased the force 
of the blow that descended full upon her blue-veined 
temple. 

With a gasp of surprise and pain she fell forward upon 
the lounge, face downward, and lay as one dead. 


X 


/ 


CHAPTER XVIT. 

TIGHTENING COILS. 

It was “beastly,” and he was quite sure no other 
“ fellow ” had ever been left so completely in the 
“ lurch ” by his own people as he was. His father, 
entirely unavailable for all practical purposes ; his mother 
suffering from nervous prostration through fright and 
anxiety; and even Bella as coldly indifferent to his fate 
as if he had been a stray dog instead of her only 
brother. 

Mr. Newcome, junior, had worked himself quite into an 
injured frame of mind. He wanted to get out of the city. 
His whole nervous system was unstrung. This awful 
death of Adolphe Neuman, and the gloom enveloping 
his own household, made the world look tragically black 
to this creature of sunshine and gayety. It was really 
essential that he should get out of town for a while, and 
he wanted to do it immediately, before that “infernal 
affair ” of his with Rose Neuman became matter of club 
gossip. There was one ray of light amid this universal 
gloom : those “accursed bonds” would have to lie quiet 
now for a little while. Neuman’s sister would inherit from 
him, and nothing would be done in a business way for 
some time to come. He should Tike to get over into 
Canada, and do a little quiet thinking. He had written 

169 


170 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


a most urgent appeal to Bella to come to him, by elev^en 
at least, and here it was fifteen minutes past and no signs 
of her coming yet. 

Mr. Newcome, junior, had not made his home under the 
parental roof for several years now He had apartments 
in a bachelor’s house. It was more independent, and 
more tony, too, you know ; and it was in his own apart- 
ments on this particular morning that he was pacing up 
and down more like an entrapped animal than like a 
young gentleman of unimpeached record and unimpeach- 
able social connections. 

He had just despatched a second messenger to Bella, 
and was anxiously awaiting his return. He came in a 
few moments and handed Mr. Newcome a disappointing 
note. It was from Miss Dorsey, and ran this way : 

“My Dear Mr. Newcome: — Our poor little Bella is 
very unwell this morning. She asks if you cannot come 
to her, rather than she go to you. The doctor positively 
forbids her leaving her room this morning, but she says 
she is not too unwell to talk to you if you will come to 
her.” 

It struck the young man disagreeably that Miss 
Dorsey should be chosen as her sister’s amanuensis. 
There was no knowing how far two women would carry 
their mutual confidences, thrown together as these two 
girls had been. He meant, now that his entanglement 
with Rose Neuman was off, to go in for the girl from 
Texas, but as she was to be at his mother’s all winter, he 
would rather begin the siege after he had pulled himself 
together a trifle. He was just knocked up at present, 
and there was no use denying it even to himself. He 
supposed there was nothing for it but to go to Bella. 


TIGHTENING COILS. 


171 


He found her lying on the lounge in her own room, which 
was darkened to its utmost capacity. There was a 
strong smell of cologne and camphor in the room. The 
latter always had a peculiarly irritating effect on young 
Mr. Newcomers nerves. 

“ What’s up now ? ” he asked, querulously, as he drew 
a chair close up to Bella’s bedside ; “you’re not going to 
break down, too, I hope.” 

“ I haven’t any idea of breaking down. I’ve just a 
little headache this morning, but I didn’t think I could 
stand the glare of the sun.” 

“ I don’t think I would have gone back on you for 
nothing worse than a little headache,” he said, resent- 
fully ; “but that’s a woman all over. No dependence to 
be placed on them in an emergency.” 

“ Oh, Algie, please don’t ! ” Her hand went out to him 
deprecatingly,. but he pushed it roughly away from him, 

“ I tell you I am on the brink of disgrace. You’ve 
got a lot of trumpery jewelry that would be more than 
ample to save me. You declare you’ll never wear one of 
the things again, and yet, like a dog in the manger, you 
refuse to part with them. If that’s sisterly, or womanly, 
or even Christianly, it’s according to the new light and not 
the old. That’s the way it looks to me.” 

“ I don’t know how to make you understand how im- 
possible it is for me to sell my jewelry to help you. 
This time yesterday I had fully made up my mind to do 
it. See ! ” she pointed to a small, black tin box on her 
bureau, “I had gathered them all together for that pur- 
pose, but — ” 

“ Well but what ? ” he asked, impatient of this sudden 


1/2 


T/JA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


pause on her part and angry because of her closed eyes 
and lips. 

“ Something has happened since then that makes it 
impossible. I cannot do it, Algie.’’ 

“ Say you won’t and be done with it.” 

“ Cannot.” 

He got up and walked away from the bedside towards 
the front window. As he stood there looking down upon 
the passers-by through the bowed shutters, the devil 
whispered a suggestion to him which he seemed to think 
quite well of. He went back to Bella presentl}^ and 
resuming his seat by her side, said, in a conciliatory 
voice : 

“ I didn’t mean to be so rough on you, little girl, but 
I’ve been considerably tried to-day. Try to go to sleep 
and forget all about it.” 

“ I meant to say to you,” she said, her voice trembling 
from some unexplained cause, “ that I think I can help 
you out of your trouble another way. I mean to try it 
to-morrow if they will let me go out of my room. Oh, 
my head ! Please give me a teaspoonful out of the 
tumbler that has the most mixture in it, there on the 
mantel.” 

“ What’s in the other one ? ” he asked, walking over to 
the mantel-shelf where the two tumblers stood side by 
side, and examining both critically. 

“Morphia; but I don’t need any more of that. I’m 
drowsy enough as it is.” 

From the tumbler that had the least in it he filled the 
spoon and came back to her. No harm could possibly 
come of it, and it would give him an opportunity to carry 
out that ^vhispered suggestion of the devil’s. He had 


TIGHTENING COILS. 


1/3 


not many minutes to wait before her regular and heavy 
breathing assured him that she was sleeping soundly. 
He supposed that big bunch of keys on the little stand 
by her side contained the one to the tin box on the 
bureau. He used unnecessary precaution in taking the 
keys from the table and tip-toeing across the room to the 
bureau. The morphia held her bound. 

He was not disappointed. The smallest key on the ring 
turned easily in the lock of the tin box. He lifted the lid 
and immediately laid his hand on the morocco box that 
contained her diamond earrings. They were magnificent 
solitaires. They, together with a pearl necklace, must 
suffice him for the time being. He put them into his 
pocket, relocked the box, and placed the bunch of keys on 
the stand where he had found it. He looked at the pale, 
sweet face on the pillow and shuddered. “ Good God ! 
how low I am sunk! But I’ll make it more than up to her 
when I pull out of this quagmire. I can’t stay here and 
watch her sleeping, it makes me feel too much like a 
hound.” 

He stole softly out of the room and went in search 
of his mother. He found her taking a late break- 
fast in her own room, Rex languidly consenting to par- 
take of it with her and sniffing fastidiously at the mor- 
sels she extended. 

“ Mother, I think I’ll run out of town for a few days,” 
he said, dropping a kiss on her upturned cheek ; and, de- 
clining the chair she proffered, he leaned lazily over the 
back of hers. “ I’m just about done up, I can tell you.” 

“ My poor boy ! ” 

Mrs. Newcome put a hand up over the back of the 
chair, upon which he bestowed a dutiful kiss. 


1/4 


T//A r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“There’s nothing special to stay in town for at present, 
and there’s so much confounded gossip afloat over the 
Newcome name that I for one feel like skipping.” 

“ My poor, dear boy ! I know all this must be very- 
trying to your sensitive nature. And those horrid club 
houses gather up all the gossip so industriously. I think 
it a very good idea. I almost wish I could run away 
myself.” 

“ If there’s anything I could do to help on here, at 
home,” he said, visited with a fleeting sense of filial obli- 
gation, “ it might make a difference.” 

“ Not a thing, my son. Your poor father’s idiosyncrasy 
is that neither you nor I shall do anything for him. Mr. 
Roberts or Bella or Andrew can do anything they please 
with him. That was altogether an accident, you know, 
last night, and he has suffered terribly from it. From 
remorse, you know.” 

“ I don’t think I know just exactly what you mean,” 
Algernon said, absently. 

He was pulling his moustache abstractedly, while he 
made a mental calculation touching the value of the solitaire 
diamond earrings and the pearl necklace in his pocket. 

“ You’ve seen your sister this morning ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, I’m just from her room. She seems under the 
weather a little, her head or something of that sort.” 

“ And she didn’t tell you what wa^ the matter ? ” 

“ No.” 

“Algernon,” said Mrs. Newcome, in a sudden burst of 
maternal appreciation, “ Bella is a truly noble girl. I 
must say I don’t believe there is another girl in ten 
thousand who would shrink so from any seeming tp attach 
blame to your poor father.” 


riGHTENlNG COILS. 


175 


Ihen she told him the story of Bella’s mishap, and how 
the first words she had spoken when recovering from the 
blow she had received were words meant to reassure her 
father. “ It was beautiful to hear her.” 

“ Bella is a good girl,” the young man asserted hur- 
riedly, then turned the conversation on Miss Dorsey. 

“ 1 mean to see more of her when I come back to 
town,” he said, assuming an upright position when this 
topic was exhausted, and feeling cautiously in his inside 
pocket ; “ she wears well.” 

“So Mr. Ridgeway seems to think,” said Mrs. New- 
come, with biting emphasis and a sharp contraction of her 
fine brows. 

“ You don’t mean it!” 

“ I mean that he, under pretext of coming every morn- 
ing to make inquiries for the family, manages to pay Miss 
Dorsey quite lengthy calls. I begin to think she is 
really designing, quite capable of trying to undermine 
your sister while we are absorbed with your father.” 

“ And what does Bella have to say to that ^ ” 

“ Oh I you know your sister. She is most unaccount- 
ably prejudiced against this young man. As a proof of 
it she has selected the very hours when he calls to be 
absent from the house invariably. She says her close 
attention upon your father necessitates a great deal of 
exercise. She won’t take the carriage, but every morning 
about ten o’clock starts out a-foot, looking as plain and 
dowdy as a shop girl. The dear only knows what she 
means by it all. I am quite worn out with that and other 
things. Now just let me tell you — ” 

Young Newcome’s fleeting sense of filial obligation did 
not include the patient hearing of one of his mother’s 


1/6 


TIIA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


lengthy, and peevish declamations against fate, so he 
dropped a hasty kiss on her cheek, said good-bye hur- 
riedly, and was out of the house before another minute 
had elapsed. 

It was perhaps two hours before he returned to his own 
apartments. He had been very busy in the meantime. 
There were no diamonds or pearls in his pockets when 
he got home, only their equivalent in a roll of bills, of 
varying degrees of cleanliness. His face looked much 
brighter, and his step was decidedly more elastic. To- 
morrow he would give the town the “go by,” and it 
would go hard with him if he did not stay away till things 
look “ less squally.” 

The light in the elevator was rather obscure when he 
entered it to ascend to his own apartments, and so, 
although he saw a man already seated there, he did not 
give him a second thought until they both stepped out on 
the same floor. Then he started and paled visibly. It 
was Benedick. The greeting was very frigid on New- 
come’s side. 

“ You are snug here,” said Benedick, following him 
along the softly carpeted corrider, keeping close to his 
elbow when he fitted the latch-key into his own door, and 
entering close upon his heels. 

“ Yes, sit down ; ” that was all the younger man could 
find to say, and they looked at each other sullenly. 

“ You’re not glad to see me,” said Benedick, selecting 
a chair and seating himself where he could look the 
younger man full in the face. 

“ Why should I be } ” 

“ On general principles of amity and confidence and 
mutual respect, you know, and all that sort of thing.” 


TIGHTENING COILS. 


^77 


“ Well, let’s have it ! Something special has brought 
you here. What is it ? I am very busy this afternoon. 
Be brief and to the point, please.” 

“ Getting ready to go out of town, I suppose,” Benedick 
said, composedly fixing his cold eyes on the handsome, 
boyish face before him. 

Algernon looked at him in surprise. Was the fellow 
acting the spy on him all this time } 

“ Oh ! nobody’s told me ; I just took it for granted you 
would be. I’m sure I’d be ready to skip if I was in your 
place. And that’s what’s brought me here this morning 
— to give you a friendly hint. I’m glad to find it ain’t 
needed.” 

“ A friendly hint of what ? ” 

“ Of your danger ! ” 

“ My danger ! Danger of what ? ” 

“ Of arrest.” 

“ Arrest ! What for ? ” He asked the question with a 
certain degree of boldness, but his heart felt like a lump 
of ice in his bosom. 

“As the suspected murderer of Adolphe Neuman.” 

Algernon bounded from his chair, livid in the face 
with combined passion, fear, and amazement : 

“ You lying dog ! Show me the fool who would dare 
accuse me of such a deed.” 

“ It was to help you avoid them, not to show them to 
you, that I came here, you tragic young idiot, you.” 

“ But what motive could I have ? ” 

Benedick looked at him very keenly as he answered 
with slow deliberation : 

“On the night of Adolphe Neuman’s death those forged 


178 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


bonds disappeared. They have never been seen since. 
Now can you imagine what motive you could have ? ” 

“ I see, I see. My God, how the coils tighten about 
me!” 

With a groan of despair he began pacing the room. 
His leaving town at this juncture would now seem like 
flight from justice. Should he stay and brave the worst, 
or fly and leave his justification from this last most 
hideous charge to time ? Surely it must transpire sooner 
or later who had really committed this foul deed. 

The decision was taken out of his hands. A per- 
emptory demand for admission sounded on his door. 
His nervous “ Come in ” gave ingress to two officers of 
the law, and to his profound stupefaction he found himself 
under arrest as the suspected murderer of Adolphe 
Neuman. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A CONFERENCE PROPOSED. 

Life seemed to Rose Neuman a very empty affair on 
the first day that she took her place again at the breakfast- 
table after an interim of nearly two months. 

Adolphe’s shocking death, coming so immediately as it 
had upon the exciting event of the day prior to it, had 
left her bereft of all will-power, conscious only of the 
absolute hollowness of a world from which all sweetness 
and brightness had been stricken with startling sudden- 
ness and completeness. 

Mrs. Lawrence was all that was left to her. And as 
she looked across the table at the rotund form of that 
excellent woman, and at the full, placid face beaming 
now with a sort of animal content over the viands that 
were to her such an important factor in life, the girl 
moaned audibly at thought of spending the rest of her 
life with no other companionship, no higher association. 
At the sound of that plaintive little moan Mrs. Lawrence 
looked amiably up from her chop to say : 

“ I hope that ugly pain hasn’t come back again, dear.” 

“ I’m not in any pain at all, aunt Rebecca, thank you ; ” 
but the great hollows in her smooth olive cheeks and the 
black rings about her lustrous eyes and the thinning of the 
slender fingers where the heavy rings would swing about 
until their hard glittering stones were vexatious to the 

179 


7'//A y G//^L FROM TEXAS. 


I So 

tender flesh, all bore melancholy testimony to the pain 
that had been her portion for weeks past. 

‘‘ No pain at all ? Come, I am glad to hear that. 
May be then, you will be able, to-day, to see that young 
woman who has called so often and is so persistent.’’ 

Rose gave a little petulant motion of her head. Why 
should she see anybody } Who was there in the world 
now that she cared to see ? Why not do as she pleased ? 

I had forgotten all about her,” she said ; “ I’m sure 
I can’t imagine what she wants with me.” 

“ I was quite sure you had forgotten all about her. 
She was here yesterday and told me to say that she meant 
to come every day until you granted her an interview.” 

“ Does she look as if she wanted money ? ” Miss 
Neuman asked impatiently, quite ready to purchase immu- 
nity from intruders at liberal figures. 

“ Indeed she doesn’t,” said Mrs. Lawrence. “ I feel 
myself quite capable of coping with that sort of visitor. 
This girl is a lady, every inch of one. She talks in a soft, 
lazy sort of fashion ; doesn’t even beg for this interview. 
Simply left word that she intended to come every day 
until you saw her.” 

“ And you told her — } ” 

“That you spoke of leaving your room to-day for the 
first time, and that perhaps if she called this morning, at 
eleven o’clock, you might see her.” 

“ I suppose I must. Her persistence is getting to be 
a sore trial to me. How strangely she acts ! ” 

And so when eleven o’clock came and brought with it, 
promptly, the young lady whom Mrs. Lawrence had been 
industriously interviewing to no purpose daily for more 
than two weeks, she received a different answer this time, 


A CONFERENCE PROPOSED. 


l8l 


and was shown through the grand parlor, where Mrs. 
Lawrence had always received her with an impressiveness 
quite in keeping with the splendid upholstering of the 
apartment, into the tiny little alcove beyond, where Rose 
stood waiting for her, a majestic figure of sorrow and 
dignity. 

It was Flo Dorsey who swept towards her and, holding 
out both hands impulsively, said in a voice of caressing 
pity: 

“ You poor, poor child ! Don’t stand there looking so 
self-contained in your sorrow. I am so sorry for you, so 
terribly sorry, and you must let me show it, you know.” 

Rose looked at her in a sort of stupefaction. What 
manner of girl was this who had burst in upon her with 
such effusive sympathy .? She was looking up into a fine 
frank face, full now of womanly pity for her suffering. 
She was looking up into a pair of big gray eyes that 
seemed absolutely incapable of guile. She was clasping 
two hands that were firm and warm and determined in 
their hold. The inspection was altogether satisfactory. 
She drew her strange visitor toward a lounge with her : 

“It is very good of you to come to me in this way. I’m 
sure you mean that you are sorry for me. You look good 
and true. Please tell me your name ; aunt Lawrence has 
never been able to give it to me.” 

“ No,” said Flo, drawing her breath a little nervously, 
as one does when about to take a hazardous plunge, “ I 
was afraid if you knew who I was you would not see 
me.” 

Rose looked at her questioningly. 

“ You know — I — my name is Dorsey — Florine Dor- 
sey.” 




THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


182 

“Yes? ” still questioning and surprised. 

“ I am Bella Newcome’s dearest friend.” 

She had been holding one of Rose’s hands all this 
while. It was withdrawn from her with a quick jerk, 
and the slight figure by^er side seemed to grow visibly 
taller and more rigid, while Miss Neuman’s fine, thin nos- 
trils expanded and quivered. 

“ Ah, I know how hard it is to overlook such an awful 
possibility, Miss Neuman ; but do you really believe that 
he did it ? Think of him, so weak, so pitifully weak, I 
grant you. Too weak, I should say, to carry such an 
awful intention into execution. Think of his poor old 
father, mercifully spared all knowledge of this last great 
calamity simply because his mind is darkened. Think of 
my poor innocent, crushed Bella, and then have mercy.” 

“ I don’t understand the meaning of one word you are 
saying,” Rose said, looking her visitor wonderingly in the 
face as she drew the sentence out slowly and with great 
intervals between the words. “ What have I to do with 
Mr. — with any of the Newcome family ? ” 

Flo studied the pale, wan face before her attentively for 
a second or two, then stooped with the suddenness of 
an eagle swooping on its prey, and kissed Rose on her 
forehead. 

“ There is more strength of soul hidden away behind 
those big tender eyes than one sees who just looks at 
you for your beauty,” she said, impulsively. 

“ I don’t like you now,” Rose said, drawing petulantly 
away from the arm Flo had thrown about her waist ; “ and 
please don’t talk to me in such a vein. I have been too 
terribly stricken myself not to be able to feel for any one 
in trouble. It seems strange that I should be called on 


A CONFERENCE PROPOSED. 1 83 

to sympathize with any one of the Newcome family, 
but—” 

“ Then you do believe it ? ” Flo interrupted tempest- 
uously. 

“ I do believe what ? ” 

“ That he is guilty of — of — ” 

It was harder than she had thought it was going to be, 
to speak in plain terms to this suffering young creature of 
the awful tragedy that had been enacted in that house. 

Rose seemed to gather more information from her em- 
barrassed pause than from her previous somewhat inco- 
herent remarks. She paled to the very lips, and leaning 
forward until her hair almost brushed Flo’s shoulder, 
she said in a frightened voice : 

“ Do you mean to say that Algernon Newcome is 
accused of having — having — ” she stopped and for one 
long shuddering moment sat clasping and unclasping her 
hands with a despairing gesture. 

“ I mean,” said Flo, in a voice full of sympathy, yet 
resolved to persevere in the hard task she had set herself, 
“ that Algernon Newcome stands arraigned before the 
bar of justice as the murderer of your brother. Strange 
you should never have heard it. I implore you, my dear 
Miss Neuman, to rise above all personal feeling and talk 
to me about this awful occurrence v/ith a view to pre- 
venting still greater misery in the future ! I know you 
are capable of doing it.” 

Rose got up and went away from her. She was trem- 
bling violently, and when she tried to speak, nothing came 
of it but husky whispering. Flo sat and watched her as 
she swept restlessly about the room, her long black drap- 


184 


TBA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


cries trailing after her. Her delicate face betrayed the 
violent working of the tempest-tossed soul within. 

“ She will come back to me presently, calm and ready 
to talk about it,” was Flo’s mental conclusion, and she 
waited patiently until Rose did come back and reseat 
herself on the lounge. 

“ God forbid,” she said firmly, but in a voice of such 
gentleness and sadness that the tears sprang to Flo’s 
eyes as she listened, “ that I should ever withhold a word 
which once spoken might help to save the meanest thing 
alive from unmerited punishment. I have never allowed a 
newspaper to be brought into this house since that awful 
occurrence, nor have I ever permitted my poor brother’s 
name to be mentioned in my presence. I was quite willing 
to have colder and wiser heads than mine to do what it was 
necessary to do. This is why I have never heard before 
this moment that anyone had been pronounced even his 
suspected murderer. Can you tell me why suspicion 
rests on Mr. Algernon Newcome ? ” 

“ It is said,” Flo answered, not unconscious that she was 
treading upon quicksand that might engulf her, “ that 
there were some papers involved whose disappearance has 
fastened suspicion on him.” 

A flood of crimson swept over Rose Neuman’s face, but 
she did not lose her hard-won composure. 

“ Yes ? and — then — what has suspicion led to ? ” 

“ His arrest.” 

“ What ? ” 

“ And imprisonment.” 

“ Horrible, horrible, horrible ! Poor Miss Newcome ! 
Her case is even more pitiable than mine. I would rather 
have my brother where he is than where hers is.” 


A CONFERENCE PROPOSED. 1 85 

“ It will kill Bella, I know it will ” — Flo’s tears were now 
flowing passionately — “ unless, unless you can throw some 
light on this horrible mystery which will exonerate her 
brother.” 

“ That I cannot do. My brother retired to his room as 
well as ever in his life. He kissed me and begged my 
pardon for some trouble he had helped bring on me. I 
never saw him alive again.” 

“ And have you no theory ? ” 

“ Yes, I have a theory. But that is not for discussion 
with you. Is there any evidence at all against the ac- 
cused man ? ” 

“ None but the circumstantial evidence of the disap- 
pearance of papers which your brother held and which they 
say would have ruined Algernon.” 

“ When does his trial come off ? ” 

“ He has already had a preliminary examination and 
been committed for trial this fall. 

‘^The missing papers comprise all the evidence against 
him } ” 

“ So far. And oh ! dear Miss Neuman, it was on the 
one chance that you might know something about those 
papers that I dared to come to you in this way.” 

“ I do know something about those papers,” said Rose, 
rising wearily, “ and if you will send some trustworthy 
friend, man friend I mean, of this unfortunate young 
man’s to me, I will advise with him about them; but not 
with you, not with you.” 

“ Why not with me ? ” Flo asked eagerly. 

“ Because, perhaps some day you will be the wife of 
the man you came here to plead for — ” 

“ Never ! ” Flo interrupted explosively. 


THA T GIRL FROM 7'EXAS. 


1 86 

“ It would be better for me to say what I have to say to 
a man with decided views of honor and justice and mag- 
nanimity, a man who can weigh evidence dispassion- 
ately and pursue the path of duty fearlessly.” 

“ I will send you Mr. Roberts,” said Flo promptly, ris- 
ing and drawing on her glove in such violent haste as to 
tear the delicate kid. 

“Who is Mr. Roberts?” Miss Neuman asked, with 
some natural curiosity as to the man she was to confer 
with on a matter of such vital importance. 

“ He is the junior partner and the only man I know of 
possessed of the qualifications you demand — except one,” 
she added, remorsefully remembering Dr. Rogers at the 
eleventh hour; and with another outburst of sincere sym- 
pathy for the stricken girl before her, Flo hurried away. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

WHAT CAME OF THE CONFERENCE. 

As Miss Neuman had sent for Mr. Roberts with the 
avowed intention of placing him in possession of some 
very important information touching Algernon Newcome’s 
perilous position, she made no pretence of other talk 
when the junior partner was actually in her presence, but 
went straight at the subject in hand by asking him 
abruptly : 

“ Have you made up your own mind, Mr. Roberts, as 
to Mr. Newcome’s guilt or innocence of the awful charge 
brought against him ? ” 

“ I have,’^ said Mr. Roberts, distinctly and decidedly. 

“ And is it so irrevocably fixed that nothing could alter 
it?’^ 

“ On the contrary, I am prepared to hear and to weigh 
the minutest grain of evidence, with the one prime object 
of getting at the truth, let who may suffer for it.” 

“ We have common ground to stand upon, then,” she 
said, with a smile infinitely sadder than tears. “ I have 
made up my own mind in the last few days to go to 
Elurope with my aunt, Mrs. Lawrence, and before starting 
I wanted to put my theory of this case into the hands of 
someone who would make a proper use of it. Miss Dor- 
sey has already assured me that you would do that ; ” a 
slight pause and then she asked: “You think Mr. 

187 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


I88 

Robert Newcomers son incapable of committing so black 
a deed as a midnight murder ? ” 

“ I do, most emphatically.” 

“ Is it that you think him too good or too cowardly ? ” 

“ Perhaps^DOth.” 

“ Which requires the most nerve of a dastardly sort, to 
pull a trigger in the dark and perform a deed of deviltry 
in one second of unreasoning passion and hate, or to 
spend days and weeks cold-bloodedly concocting a plan 
for defrauding one’s own father and covering one’s own 
name with everlasting infamy in case of detection.?” 

Mr. Roberts started violently. How much did this 
sad-eyed girl really know and how much was she only 
guessing at .? 

“ They are such widely differing sorts of villany,” he 
began, by way of partial answer to her direct question, 
but she interrupted him with her sweet voice raised to a 
sharp pitch of resentment : 

“ What nice shading of villany we have in these artis- 
tic days, and how scrupulous we are about not applying 
one touch too much or too little of blackness to crimes 
already so black that demons might shudder at them ! I 
want to tell you how much provocation this unhappy 
young man had to hate my poor brother, and after you 
have heard the whole miserable story, perhaps you will 
not think it impossible that the man who forged his own 
father’s name could have sunk into yet deeper abysses of 
wickedness.” 

Then she told him the whole story of her own affair 
with the suspected murderer of her brother up to the mo- 
ment when she left him trembling and dismayed in pres- 
ence of the minister, who stood listening and looking 


117/A7' CAME OF THE COFFER ENCE. 189 

amazedly. She had not softened the episode of her 
brother’s withering denunciation of him, nor of his inti- 
mation that the bonds would have to be provided for in 
another manner. 

“ Do you wonder,” she said, in conclusion, that his 
whole soul swelled with hatred of the man who had 
placed him in a position which would make him forever 
ridiculous in the eyes of the fashionable world that he 
adores ? As for myself 1 have held but one theory of 
this murder from the first, and that theory filled me with 
such horror that it is slight wonder this poor, overwrought 
system gave way under the shock. I have been un-able 
to act, or scarcely to think how I should act. I have no 
one to advise me, not one in all this world full of people 
with cool heads and kind hearts. I want to do simply 
what it is my duty to do in this matter, but it is an awful 
thing to speak words that may deprive a human being 
of life.. The spoken word is irrevocable.” 

“You believe that Algernon Newcome did this thing? ” 
“I do.” 

“ And will so state on oath, when your deposition is 
required by the prosecuting attorney?” 

“ I have told you that I was going immediately to 
Europe. I shall remain abroad indefinitely. 1 think no 
deposition will be required of me ; I am sure none will 
be obtained. Am I to understand that the disappear- 
ance of those forged bonds was what led to this young 
man’s accusation and arrest ? ” 

“ It was. There is not a scintilla of evidence against 
him besides that.” 

She had received him in the library, sitting near the 
desk where Adolphe had been sitting when she had come 


190 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


to him that morning tricked out in her bridal array. She 
leaned over and unlocking a drawer drew out a package s 
of papers. f 

“ There are the bonds which are said to have disap- 
peared.’’ 

“And never did ? ” Roberts asked, becoming excited ^ 
in his bewilderment. “ How did the report get out 
then ? ” i 

“Yes, they did disappear. I only replaced them in { 
that drawer this morning. I had possession of them. I 
believe one of the servants testified that on the night of 
my brother’s death he found him in a state of great ex- 
citement over some papers that had disappeared from his 
library table, and that he heard him mutter something 
about its being a good thing for Newcome if they were 
lost.” 

“ Yes, but — ” 

“ You fail to understand my agency in their disappear- 
ance.” 

“ Entirely.” 

“ I must go into a few more humiliating details. When 
I came back from the parlor, after refusing to ratify my 
promise of marriage with Mr. Newcome, those papers 
were scattered on the table just as Adolphe had flung 
them down in his passion. They would have been safe 
there forever, for no servant ever dared molest anything 
in this room. I was seized with a desire to inflict what . 
to me would have been the keenest possible punishment 
on the man who had been willing to marry me simply to 
screen himself from the consequences of his own ill-do- ^ 

ing. I would ask Adolphe to give me those bonds. And \ 

I would destroy them with my own hands in Algernon 


WHAT CAME OF THE CONFERENCE. 19 1 

Newcome’s presence, crushing him with the knowledge 
that he owecf his personal safety to the woman he had 
insulted. 

“ It was a bit of romantic nonsense, perhaps, you will 
say. I have no defence to offer for it. I am simply 
making the only deposition I ever intend to make. 

“ I gathered all the papers and took them to my own 
room. On the next day, when Adolphe and I should both 
be calmer, I would prefer my petition. I did not see him 
again that night but for a moment, when he came to my 
room door and took me into his arms and kissed me and 
begged my pardon for his share in my trouble. 

“ I told him that I had a great favor to ask of him 
the next day; he said I could ask nothing loo great for 
him to grant, and then he kissed me again and went 
away. 

“There was no to-morrow for him, and the dear voice 
of my brother had sounded in my ears for the last 
time. There are the bonds. It was only through Miss 
Dorsey, to-day, that I have learned what an important 
part they had played in fastening suspicion on Algernon 
Newcome.” 

Mr. Roberts sat dumbly awaiting an avowal of her 
present intentions. Her cause seemed so altogether just 
that he could scarcely blame her if she went to the full 
extremity of the law in punishing his partner’s son. But 
he could not trace any desire for retaliation or revenge in 
the pure, noble face before him. It was as the face of 
one who had been sanctified through suffering. 

She loosened the tape band about the papers and seiz- 
ing a pen dipped it into red ink and wrote diagonally 
across the face of each bond the word “ Cancelled,” in 


192 


rilA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


Strong, bold letters. This done she retied the package 
and extended it towards Mr. Roberts. 

“ Take this package, please, and carry it to the man 
who is accused of my brother’s murder. Tell him I place 
in his own hands the only scrap of evidence that can be 
brought to convict him. He may destroy this evidence 
of his guilt and consider the score between us can- 
celled.” 

Mr. Roberts put gently away from him the hand that 
held the papers. “ I cannot take those papers, nor can 
you place them in his hands. It would be compounding 
a felony,” he said, in a quick, decided voice. “ Do you 
forgive him so freely ? ” 

She drew her hand quickly back with the bonds in it. 
A drop-light was burning brightly close to her hand. 
It was the work of a second to thrust the dry papers into 
its blaze. Mr. Roberts sprang forward excitedly. She 
waved him back imperiously. 

“ Stand back. This is my property. I can destroy it 
at my will. I will have no part nor lot in the conviction 
of this unhappy wretch.” 

She remained motionless until the handsome library 
table was strewn with the charred remains of the forged 
bonds ; her eyes were ablaze and her arm was tremulous ; 
but it was only when they had burned to her finger-tips that 
she dropped the remnant, muttering audibly, “ Dust to 
dust, ashes to ashes ; dust of my joys, ashes of my hopes ; ” 
then louder : “ Go, please, to the man who is accused of 
my brother’s murder and tell him I have voluntarily 
destroyed the evidences of his guilt as a forger, because I 
desired to humiliate him into the position of a beneficiary 
upon the woman he has wronged so cruelly. As for his 


WHAT CAAIE OF THE CONFERENCE. 1 93 

guilt in this greater matter, who am I that I should 
judge ? If he is not guilty, I would not have him con- 
demned on so flimsy a piece of testimony ; if he is — then 
may the God who claims vengeance as one of his own 
awful prerogatives have mercy on his soul.” 

She bowed her head for a second, then with gentle dig- 
nity passed by the junior partner and out of the room. 

So far as Algernon Newcome’s fate was concerned, she 
had not given him any material aid, nor, indeed, had he 
any right to expect that she should. She had simply 
settled the whereabouts of the forged bonds, and by 
their destruction in his presence had washed her hands 
of the whole miserable business. 

What could he do next to clear the name of his 
revered partner from this last and greatest infamy which 
threatened it 1 Rose had destroyed the very piece of 
evidence which would have gone far to clear Algernon 
Newcome of the charge of murder. And yet, if he could 
be relieved of that charge, without the fact of his forgery 
being made public, how much better for them all ! 

Amid all the perplexities that beset him, amid filial, 
anxious thoughts for his senior partner, wrathful and 
condemnatory ones for Algernon, tender and loving ones 
for Bella, his thoughts found time to wander again and 
again, pitifully enough, to the lonely sorrowing girl he 
had left behind in Aldolphe Neuman’s blighted home. 

Was he ever to see her again ? 

13 


CHAPTER XX. 


MR. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 

Yes, he was to see her again. 

He was entering upon his third week of intercourse 
with the lawyers and the detectives who were “ working 
up the Neuman case” with a sickening sense of helpless- 
ness. Darker and darker grew Algernon’s chances, and 
more absolutely bewildered, himself. 

Nothing short of the boy’s own full confession would 
ever convince him that Bella’s effeminate brother could 
have done a deed of villany requiring so much nerve. 
But against whom else could suspicion be turned } 

He heard from Rose Neuman before seeing her again. 
She wrote to him, asking him to come to her at once ; and 
when he had gone to her he found her in a trembling 
condition of indecision. 

“ I did not want to send for you, Mr. Roberts, but Aunt 
Rebecca is too nervous and weak to be any dependence 
in an emergency, and I could not call in other friends 
for fear this matter might have reference to — to — the 
wretched business I had hoped I was done with forever.” 

She had gone right into the business on hand with her 
usual directness, but the junior partner was scarcely 
enlightened by it. 

“It is this way,” she said, looking at him with eyes 
from which it seemed the shadows never would lift. 

194 


/’I/A’. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 195 

This morning two sisters of charity came to me with 
a strange story, and I don’t know what to do about it. 
They say that, nearly a month ago now, a man came to 
the institution and gave them two letters, one of them 
addressed to me, the other one to — to — ” she suddenly 
put her hand up to her throat and held it there for a 
second, as if suffering — “ the man who is accused of my 
brother’s murder.” 

“My dear Miss Neuman, I implore you not to go into 
any details which may harrow you. Tell me as little as 
you possibly can, and yet make things clear,” said the 
junior partner, suffering himself as only strong men can 
suffer at sight of a woman’s woe. 

“Thank you,” said Rose, gently; “I am afraid I am 
very weak yet. The sisters say that the man told them 
he was going to sail for Australia the next morning, and 
he wanted those letters delivered one month after his 
sailing, not before. The month would have been up in 
a day or two. Last night, they were summoned to the 
hospital, where they found this same man dying. He 
wants to see me, they say, and — and — oh, tell me what I 
must do. They did not bring the letter, they said they 
thought I had best see him first.” 

“ If you would not mind very much going with me,” 
said Percy Roberts, “ I think, perhaps, you will not be 
sorry.” 

She spent only a moment in silent reflection, then put- 
ting her hand in his, she said, looking at him wistfully : 

“ I will go with you. Perhaps God has thought of 
some plan for easing this intolerable heartache. If there 
is one unhappier wretch alive than I, it may do me good 
{ to comfort him.” 


196 THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 

When the junior partner went out to call a carriage, 
he seized the opportunity of despatching an officer to the 
hospital in advance. If there was to be a confession 
made, nothing must be neglected that could make it 
effective. 

Into the pure white presence of the sisters of mercy, a 
little while later, he led the pure, white-souled sister of 
the murdered man. Grouped about the bed where lay a 
man whose eyes were already filmy in death stood the 
hospital surgeon and the two sisters who had visited 
Rose Neuman in her own home. 

“ I am afraid you are too late,” one of them said to 
Rose, advancing eagerly and taking the girl’s trembling 
hands in her own. “ He has never spoken since he 
asked us to fetch you.” 

“ Am I too late ? ” Rose asked, looking eagerly from 
the pallid face and closed eyes of the dying man towards 
the surgeon. 

“ You are ! ” 

With an impatient gesture, Mr. Roberts turned towards 
the officer who had entered with him and Rose. 

The officer uttered the one word, “ Baffled ! ” and 
shrugged his shoulders indifferently. 

“ By heavens, this is hard ! ” said Roberts, in a louder 
voice than those quiet walls had resounded to for 
many a day. “ I do believe that there lies the murderer 
of Adolphe Neuman. Oh, God, grant him the power of 
speech for one fleet second ! ” 

There was a second of profound stillness in the little 
room. A gurgling sound issued from the dying man’s 
throat. Was it the “ death rattle,” as the officer, now 
bending eagerly over the bed, declared it ? 


MR. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 1 97 

“ His pulse flutters ; a spoonful of brandy there, quick, 
quick ! ” It was the doctor who gave this imperative 
order to one of the sisters. 

The man on the bed opened his eyes. His head 
moved restlessly from side to side. 

“ I can't see. I can’t see the good women. Fetch 
’em. I want — to — tell them about the letters. Neuman’s 
— sister — won’t come.” 

Rose broke away from the encircling arm of the sister, 
and kneeling down by the bed, said in clear, unfaltering 
tones : “ I am Mr. Neuman’s sister. Did you want to 

say anything to me ” 

“ I can’t see you — I guess I’m purty far gone — but I 
can hear you. Your voice sounds like I guess the angels’ 
voices sound. I’d like to hear you say — ‘ I forgive you. 
Benedick,’ before I go.” 

“ Benedick ! ” the officer repeated the name softly, with 
a low whistle of surprise. But no one had eyes or ears 
for anyone but the dying criminal. 

“ What have I to forgive you. Benedick ? ” 

“ You’ve read the letter ? ” 

“ No, not yet.” 

“ It’s true. All true. I swear it — here — in the pres- 
ence of these saints on earth, who have been praying 
for me to the saints above.” 

“ You swear to what ? ” Roberts and the officer 
asked in a breath. 

“ That — I — killed her brother. Stand back, men ; 
this is no time to call me to justice — I am done with 
earth. I want to hear l>er say she forgives me — before — 
I go to try my chances in the next world. Say it, young 


98 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


lady ; it will comfort me. If a mortal can be merciful 
to a wretch like me — I — may — hope — for — it — above.” 

He had used all the strength miraculously lent him for 
that last supreme plea. His restless head was turned 
towards Rose. His sin-stained soul was fluttering to 
escape from his worn-out body. 

“ If you have any comfort for him, give it quickly,” 
the surgeon whispered to Rose ; “ he is going fast.” 

Then, in a voice that must have sounded to Benedick 
like the voice of an angel standing on the mysterious 
borders of the undiscovered country. Rose spoke the 
words he so much wanted to hear : 

“ Benedick, as freely as I hope God will forgive me 
my sins, I forgive yours. May he receive you into ever- 
lasting peace, this hour.” 

There was no sign that he heard. The form on the bed 
had grown motionless. The restless head lay still upon 
the pillows. Benedick stood before the bar of everlast- 
ing justice. 

“ The ietter ! ” said Roberts, eagerly, to the sisters ; and 
with them in his possession, he made haste to take Rose 
away from the hospital. 

With two letters from the self-confessed murderer of 
Adolphe Neuman to lay before the prosecution, and his 
dying confession before witnesses, the obtaining of Alger- 
non Newcome’s release was a mere matter of form, and 
within a few days of the delivery of Benedick’s letters 
he was at liberty ence more and was in his mother’s arms, 
being wept over as never prodigal was wept over before. 

Mr. Roberts had driven up to the house with him and 
left him there, turning away from him very much with the 
sensation one might experience after having pulled a 


MR. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 199 

drowning puppy out of the water and set it once mol-e 
staggeringly on its own untrustworthy feet. The drown- 
ing puppy was off his hands now, and he had time to 
think of the many other perplexities which were pressing 
him sorely, and to make a decision which must be made 
for his own peace of mind before much more time 
elapsed. 

By a miracle, as it were, the Newcome name had been 
rescued from public obloquy. Owing to the fact that for 
his own vengeful purposes Adolphe Newman had industri- 
ously gathered all the forged bonds into his own keeping 
and had been so awfully swept away before he could 
wreak that vengeance, the crime of the forgery had never 
tanspired publicly. But was it any the less abhorrent to 
his (Roberts’) feelings to connect himself with a man who 
was to all intents and purposes a criminal, though an un- 
condemned one ? 

He loved this man’s sister, he honored and revered this 
man’s father, while for his vain, weak mother he experi- 
enced no more violent sensation than that of pity and 
contempt. But Algernon himself certainly was a thorn 
in the flesh. 

Mr. Newcome (who had been removed to a home-like 
retreat soon after the violent explosion which had so 
alarmed his wife) was improving rapidly under the com- 
bined influences of pure air and restful quiet. Doubtless 
in a month or two he would be in a frame of mind that 
would render consultation with him quite safe. He con- 
cluded to wait until then, before urging that Algernon be 
sent to Europe. It would be hard on him to predict a 
future empty of any good effort, because of his slip-up in 
this matter, but it was the manner he had taken things 


200 


TI/A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


since his release that specially disgusted the junior part- 
ner and made him take so hopeless a view of the young 
man’s future. 

His vindication from the charge of murder had resulted 
in an almost flippant veering from abject fear to empty 
bluster. He even, seemed to regard this episode as one 
calculated to give him a certain sort of eclat in the set 
whose admiration and plaudits were very dear to his friv- 
olous soul. 

As for the bonds, when Mr. Roberts (himself all aglow 
with admiration of the thing Rose Neuman had done with 
such fine unconsciousness that she had risen to the level 
of the heroic) told him the whole story circumstantial!}', 
hoping thereby to cover him with that sense of shame 
and remorse that sometimes begets better things, he had 
listened to it eagerly, as well he might, pulling his fair, 
blond moustache reflectively the while, and had then 
commented on it in a style that sorely tempted Mr. 
Roberts to entwine his sinewy fingers about the slim 
white neck under that blond moustache and throttle him. 

“ She’s done the thing handsomely — girls are queer 
creatures. Pity Miss Neuman’s pedigree isn’t a little 
purer. She wouldn’t be bad to take.” 

“ Newcome,” said the junior partner, rising and 
shaking his fist in the weak face of the other man, “ you 
are a miserable toad, utterly incapable of comprehending 
a noble action even wdien your own pitiful self is the ben- 
eficiary of it.” 

“ It’s easy enough to insult a fellow when he’s down 
and dependent on you to get out of this infernal hole,” 
the boy had answered sulkily ; but the one grain of truth 
in his assertion had been enough to extract a partial apol- 


MR. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 


201 


ogy from his generous-minded assailant, and they had 
parted amicably enough. 

And this was the man with whom he was proposing to 
enter into fraternal relations ! It is true that Bella’s 
sweetness, goodness, and truthfulness were more than an 
offset to her brother’s absolute worthlessness. It never 
once occurred to him that he must relinquish the one 
because of the undesirability of the other. He was only 
waiting for that general lifting of the clouds from the 
Newcome horizon before he put his all to the test. He 
was still resolutely-minded to give Lord Rainsforth’s son 
an even start. 

During all these troublous times, Mr. Ridgway’s devo- 
tion had shown no apparent diminution. True, the com- 
plete withdrawal of the family from society had left the 
young Englishman to worship from afar, as it were, and 
under the most discouraging auspices. Mr. Roberts 
placed it to his credit that nothing that had so far hap- 
pened had seemed to cool his ardor. Every day or two 
had found him calling at the house, bringing with him 
flowers and sympathy and well-chosen' expressions of his 
hopes, showing that he was experiencing all the proper 
emotions of a true lover under the circumstances. The 
fact that Miss Dorsey invariably received him for her 
friend made no difference in his movements. 

His genteel words of sympathy, his mildly expressed 
hopes, his costly flowers were all laid at Bella’s feet by 
proxy, as it were, and the junior partner was magnani- 
mously resolved to bide his time and let the young man 
have as free access to Miss Newcome’s society as he was 
himself enjoying, before the momentous question was 
asked. 


202 


THA T GIKL FROM TEXAS. 


“ I should always be haunted by the fear that, if I had 
not won her through gratitude, I might not have won her 
at all. Things must be bright and cheerful and square 
all around before I ask my darling to be my wife,” he 
said, lifting his head a trifle higher at the sweet visions 
evoked by the utterance of that word “ wife.” “ Such a 
dear little wife, so brave, so true ! yes, true, that’s the word 
a man loves to attach to the woman who has his name 
and his honor in keeping.” He was walking back to his 
office, after depositing Algernon at home. 

At this juncture his eye caught the glitter of something 
on the sidewalk ; it must just have fallen there ; he stooped 
and picked it up ; it was a small Russia-leather pocket-book, 
and the glitter of the clasp was what had caught his eye. 
He glanced about him ; it was the hour of noon, just the 
hour when most ladies find their way homeward for lunch 
from the shopping districts. There were only two in 
sight, both walking rapidly away from him. One of them 
looked singularly like Miss Newcome — her height, her 
walk, her form ; but she was dressed in an extremity of 
plainness that would be altogether uncalled for in Bella’s 
case. 

He opened the pocket-book to discover, if possible, the 
name and residence of its owner. It had a pocket for 
cards inside, and opening the flap of this he inserted two 
fingers and brought to light two pawn-tickets. He 
blanched aTsight of them, though scarcely knowing why. 
He felt again in the pocket and drew out a couple of visit- 
ing cards — “ Miss Bella Newcome ” was printed on them. 
He glanced quickly up in the direction of the fast walk- 
ing young woman whose back had so resembled Miss 
Newcome’s. If he could overtake her, he would restore 


MR. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 


203 


her property and never let her know he had seen the 
pawn-tickets. Could it be she had broken a promise to 
him ? He would not judge her until she had failed to 
explain it satisfactorily of her own free will. 

From block to block he pursued that swift-moving 
figure, now wondering at the smooth rapidity of her move- 
ments, now wondering at her presence in that part of the 
town, now wondering angrily over the pawn-tickets, 
conscious, all the while, of a sickening apprehension that 
Bella had shown herself capable of deception ; now 
angrily upbraiding himself for permitting a doubt of her 
truthfulness to enter his mind, until, suddenly, the object 
of his pursuit mounted the steps to one of the old-fash- 
ioned abodes of gentility that skirt the northern side of 
Washington Square. The time consumed by her in 
ringing the bell and obtaining entrance gave him a slight 
gain in the pursuit. Perhaps he might yet deliver the 
pocket-book before she entered. But no, just as he was 
within two numbers of the house its door opened and 
enfolded her. 

The matter of delivering her pocket-book was scarcely 
urgent enough for him to ring the bell to a stranger’s 
house and ask to see her. She would probably be there 
but a few moments, he would wait over there in the old 
Square, with the great branching trees kindly spreading 
their arms above the iron benches. As a rule, the 
benches were monopolized by seedy tramps and loafers 
out-at-elbows ; but as this was the noon-day hour the 
tramps were on their various beats gathering contribu- 
tions from lunch-tables with eclectic taste and boundless 
energy. He was warm from his long and rapid walk, and 
selecting a bench which gave him full view of the house 


204 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


that had engulfed Bella, he seated himself and taking off 
his hat proceeded to fan vigorously and to reason himself 
into a more placid frame of mind. 

Why should he be so unaccountably irritated at seeing 
the woman he loved enter a door the very name of whose 
occupants was unknown to him } What infernal impu- 
dence (the phrase was his own) for him to be wondering 
over her business there ! Doubtless she was doing some- 
thing even then, behind those closed doors, charitable and 
noble enough to make his base cheeks tingle for shame 
that he should ever have mistrusted her for a second. 
But then the pawn-tickets in her pocket-book, what did 
they mean ? How came they there, after she had prom- 
ised him she would never again have recourse to such 
means of obtaining relief ? Doubtless she could explain 
it all ; doubtless she would when she should get through 
with her business over there behind that white door, with 
its silver knobs and door-plate, towards which he felt such 
an increasing antipathy. 

It would be rather a pleasant thing to have her sit with 
him a little while under those great ancient trees. It cer- 
tainly would not accord with Mrs. Newcome’s notions of 
decorum, but then Mrs. Newcome’s notions of social pro- 
priety were always a trifle strained. He calculated the 
distance nicely between the bench where he had located 
himself and the door through which she must reappear; 
he would just have time to reach her by the time she got 
to the corner. Then it occurred to him, for the first time, 
that after all, this might not be Miss Newcome. It might 
be some other young woman, perhaps a young woman 
who belonged permanently behind the white door with the 
silver mountings — some young person so fortunate as 


MR. ROBERTS RECEIVES A SHOCK. 


205 


to bear a close resemblance, in the matter of form and 
walk, to the young lady who was consuming his time 
and his thoughts for him. Perhaps the young woman 
might not entertain the slightest intention of emerging 
again for that entire day ; at which thought Mr. Roberts 
began to experience a sensation of exceeding foolishness, 
and he got up restlessly to make the rounds of the dry 
fountain-bed that ornamented the centre of the square. 

As is always the case on occasions of such patient espi- 
onage, the young woman selected the very moment when 
he had faced once more in direction of the white-doored 
house to come out of it. She paused a second to put a 
gauze veil over her head, cross it behind, and bring it 
around to tie under her chin. Of course it was Bella. 
There was no longer any doubt about it. She felt in her 
pocket ; he could see her attitude of startled reflection, 
for the first time, evidently, realizing her loss. His tour 
about the fountain had thrown his calculations out ; if she 
had glanced across the Square she would have seen him 
striding rapidly towards her ; but she glanced nowhere 
after that startled pause. She descended the steps 
quickly and turned in the direction they had both come 
nearly an hour before. 

As Roberts gained the edge of the square just opposite 
the door, it opened once more and Mr. Ridgway came 
out hurriedly, almost running down the steps. He 
followed quickly in the direction Bella had taken, soon 
overtook her, and, with no salutation that was perceptible 
to the man who had come to an astonished halt there 
on the curb-stone, took his place by her side and walked 
forward talking earnestly to her. 

Mr. Roberts watched them until they had both disap- 


2o6 


T//A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


pearecl — stood in' the same spot, indeed, for a full minute 
after they had disappeared. His strong face underwent 
many changes of expression during the moment he stood 
there motionless, his strong soul underwent many conflict- 
ing emotions in the same space of time. It was only 
when he became conscious of the curious gaze of some 
women in a window of the house opposite that he moved 
away, moved back to the bench he had been sitting on 
while waiting for her to come out, moved back there and 
fell heavily upon the seat, leaning his arm on the cold 
iron bench and supporting his miserable head in his palm. 

His brain was too giddy for him to think connectedly. 
Life could hold no sharper pain for him than to find 
Bella Newcome untruthful or deceitful. She had been 
almost girlish in her open declaration of dislike for Lord 
Rainsforth’s son , she had declared more than once in his 
presence, emphatically enough to bring down her mother’s 
most pronounced disapprobation, that five minutes of Mr. 
Ridgway’s society was enough to make a woman for- 
swear society forever. And yet here she was walking 
away froin a strange house in a strange part of the city 
with this same man for an escort ! 

With all a lover’s desire to see his beloved at the best, 
with all a good man’s longing to judge every woman 
leniently, what was he to think ? 


CHAPTER XXI. 


MRS. NEWCOME RECEIVES A SHOCK. 

A CONFIDANT of some sort is absolutely essential to 
the peace of mind and consequent physical comfort of 
most women. The world has known unique specimens of 
the sex, who, by reason of towering intellect and a cer- 
tain moral and mental self-sufficiency, have soared above 
any such necessity, finding in their own exalted natures all 
necessary relief from perplexity and from that surplus 
of emotion which needs an outlet as surely as a steam- 
boiler needs a safety-valve. The confidant is to the 
woman what the safety-valve is to the engine — a contriv- 
ance for carrying off otherwise dangerously explosive 
material. 

Mrs. Newcome was to be pitied in this respect. Mr. 
Newcome was removed from her side, and at best he had 
never been at all satisfactory in this respect ; Bella, alto- 
gether unavailable, as it was her affairs over which Mrs. 
Newcome had generated a surplus of explosive force; 
Algernon, a poor dependence for anything at the best of 
times, and just now fretting his small soul out over the 
difficulties that beset him in his approaches to Miss Dor- 
sey ; and Flo ! well, she did not quite know what to make 
of Miss Dorsey. 

If she was not designing, she was simply a mass of 
countrified sentimentality, for her whole heart seemed 

207 


2o8 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


absorbed in Lord Rainsfortirs son, and “ the way she 
harped upon every word the young man said that could 
possibly be converted into a compliment was little short 
of disgusting.” Doubtless it was somewhat bewildering 
to have a lord’s son paying her attention, but if she had 
only known a little more about the usages of gor ’ 
society, she would never have laid so much stress upo.* 
a few meaningless compliments coming from a man who 
was virtually engaged to Bella. 

“ But things were coming to a crisis,” as Mrs. New-** 
come told Rex, in a burst of confidence, lifting hpn 
bodily from the hassock at her feet and pouring all of her 
long-restrained emotions into his unresponsive face. 
“Yes, things are coming to a crisis, Rexy, and you and I 
will take a good long rest after we’ve settled all the 
particulars of this wedding.” Rex put his red tongue 
out in a lazy yawn, but offered no comment. 

Lord Rainsforth’s son had written to Mrs. Newcome 
requesting a personal interview that morning, and she had 
granted it for eleven,^ and she and Rex were waiting for 
him, looking their most imposing selves, and prepared to 
be graciously encouraging to the trembling lover who had 
shown himself such a model of patience and persever- 
ance. 

He was very punctual, and as he came towards her a 
few seconds after the library clock had struck eleven, she 
looked at him somewhat critically and not with unmixed 
approbation. It was somewhat as an expert angler might 
look at a fis.h for which he has fished never so patiently 
and industriously, but now that it is dangling at his mercy 
and he can land it at will, its extreme insignificance 
makes him marvel at his own pertinacity in obtaining it, 


M/^S. NEIVCOME RECEIVES A SHOCK. 209 

and makes him seriously question if the game has been 
worth the candle. 

The Hon. Frederick Ridgway swung his aristocratic 
length languidly on the lounge in front of Mrs. Newcome 
and inquired effusively after her health. 

Quite well, thank you, Mr. Ridgway,” she said, smil- 
ing amiably on him, but glancing away from him to pos- 
sess herself of a hideous Japanese paper-cutter that lay 
among the papeterie with which he had found her en- 
grossed. 

rr- 

fhe paper-cutter had an ugly lobster cut on the handle, 
but she found it a pleasanter object of contemplation 
while talking than the inane countenance before her. 

“ And Rex ? ” He put forth a long, slender hand, white 
to an effeminate degree, and laid it on the drab-colored 
head resting upon Mrs. Newcome’s silken lap. Rex re- 
sented the familiarity by a look of superb contempt. 

“ Quite well too, thank you ; Rex’s appetite is something 
phenomenal.” 

“ So glad ! ” Lord Rainsforth’s son murmured vaguely, 
then fidgeted on the sofa to the extent of crossing one leg 
over the other and immediately uncrossing it, seeming to 
find it a misfit. He was suffering from an extremity of 
nervousness which Mrs. Newcome, with her large experi- 
ence, pronounced to be the throes of a coming proposal. 

“ I thought it was time, you see,” the young man began 
rather explosively, “ to bring things to a crisis,” both legs 
in normal condition. 

“ Yes ? ” simply by way of assisting the sufferer. 

“ Yes, you know ; Tve been hanging fire a long time.” 

“ I know this has been a very trying time to your pa- 
tience, but I thought it was just lovely of you to be so 
14 


210 


TJ/A T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


patient with us all and to be so attentive to my poor, dear 
girl, even when she was deprived of the pleasure of see- 
ing you herself ; I’m sure you are entitled to a great re- 
ward.” 

Mr. Ridgway made a violent effort for him. He sat up 
very erectly and he did not drawl his next sentence out as 
if loath to let one word go before finding another to take 
its place : 

“ I think likely we don’t understand each other quite 
plainly. You see, that’s the crisis I want to bring about. 
I did love your daughter just awfully, you know, but she 
showed me so pointedly, the night of your reception, that 
she just couldn’t abide me that I’d have been the worst 
sort of muff to keep on with her, you know. She can be 
very clear when she’s a mind to.” 

“ Yes ? ” This time less amiably. “ Girls, our American 
girls, have sometimes a teasing way with them that makes 
young men, especially those not used to their free and 
easy ways, misunderstand them. I am sorry my daughter, 
so cautiously reared as she has been, too, should have 
been capable of any rudeness.” 

“ No, but by Jove, that won’t do at all. Miss Newcome 
don’t know how to be rude. Couldn’t be rude to a 
lackey. She simply detested me and showed me that she 
did. Some other fellow is ahead of me, you know. 
Shouldn’t wonder if it’s the junior partner. I can read 
women. Read ’em like a book. The junior partner’s no 
end of a swell, if he is in business.” 

Mrs. Newcome was wondering within herself, if things 
were as they were being represented by this inane young 
man, why should he be boring her with his presence ? 
All of a sudden, the mental inefficiency, the physical 


A/A'S. NEWCOA/E RECEIVES A SHOCK. 21 I 

imperfection, and the universal meagreness of this young 
man stood out in bold relief before her, minus the glamor 
she had so industriously invested him with when viewing 
him as a possible son-in-law. She remained politely but 
coldly attentive to him now. 

“Yes : rd wager high the junior partner has it all his 
own way in that direction. Splendid-lookings fellow — 
a man too, every inch of him.” 

Mrs. Newcome was forced to conclude within herself 
that Lord Rainsforth’s son was either phenomenally mag- 
nanimous, or he was, in a very bungling manner, trying to 
console her for his own defection. The fact of the 
case was, that close and business-like inspection into the 
financial status of the Newcomes and the Dorseys had 
resulted in an entire change of his plan of operations. 

Aloud she said, calmly : 

“ My husband’s partner is certainly a very remarkable 
man. He has been like a brother to me and an uncle to 
my dear girl during this whole trying winter.” 

“ Uncle ! Oh, come now, that’s rich,” said the English- 
man, weaving his long fingers in and out of his silky side 
whisker. “ I don’t think Roberts would smile at that. 
But I’m taking up all your morning, and I’ve got a favor 
to ask of you.” 

“You know it is granted before asked.” 

It was not worth while to be uncivil to him, even if 
he was repulsively ugly and only a degree removed from 
imbecility. 

“ Miss Dorsey, you know, she’s a stunner. Yes, but she 
is.” 

“ I believe the gentlemen all consider her very attrac- 
tive,” Mrs. Newcome admitted icily. 


THA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 




'j 


“ More than attractive ; bewitching, you know. I told 
her I was going to write to her father — she told me it 
was altogether unnecessary; her ‘papa ’ — queer idea that 
— allowed her to do just as she pleased. Thought I’d ask 
you, you know, if, as she’s under your care, you see. I’m 
at liberty to marry the young lady off-hand, you see. She 
seems so awfully independent, and then we could go to 
see her amiable parents together.” 

“ Southern girls are the most independent creatures on 
earth,” Mrs. Newcome said, not as if she quite approved 
of this independence, “ and Miss Dorsey seems to be 
allowed unusual liberty.” 

“ She can be trusted, you know. Plucky, but proper 
— immensely so ; puts a fellow off at arm’s length if 
hQ tries any experiment. Adorable, you know ; simply 
unique ; never saw anything like her ! ” 

Mrs. Newcome touched a bell on the table at her elbow 
and requested Miss Dorsey’s presence for a few moments. 
To her surprise Bella responded in Flo’s stead. 

She inclined her head coldly to Mr. RidgWay and then 
turned towards her mother. 

“ Flo asked me to come down, mamma, as she is get- 
ting ready to go out with me this afternoon to see papa.” 

“ But does she know Mr. Ridgway is here ? ” Mrs. 
Newcome asked, in cold surprise. 

“Yes, she knows it,” Bella said, still standing, quietly 
holding in her hand a small package of letters ; “ but she 
said as she had acted as proxy for me so often when 
Lord Rainsforth’s son was so kind as to bring flowers 
and messages of sympathy every day, she thought I might 
for once stand proxy for her.” 


M/^S. NEIVCOME kECE/VES A SHOCJ^. 213 

“ But, my dear child, this is a case which admits of no 
proxy. Does she know why Mr. Ridgway is here ” 

“ Yes, she knows that too.” 

This answer was given with her pure, proud face turned 
full upon the young man, who had risen at her entrance 
and was now awkwardly trying to dispose satisfactorily of 
what seemed like a superfluity of hands and feet. 

“ She knows,” Bella continued, in a ruthless voice, never 
once taking her searching gaze from his face, “ that Lord 
Rainsforth’s son has come here to ask your permission, 
as her temporary guardian, to address her.” 

“ And knowing that she sends you to the parlor instead 
of coming herself ? A most remarkable proceeding.” 

“ We agreed together that it was best I should come.” 

“ Extraordinary ! ” The Honorable Frederic muttered 
it, weaving his left whisker energetically with the fingers 
of his right hand. 

“ We agreed that, as Mr. Ridgway has done us both the 
honor of laying his heart at our feet simultaneously, he 
should be asked to explain a few discrepancies before she 
could regard his suit in any other light than that of an 
impertinence.” 

“ Isabella ! ” 

Mrs. Newcome’s bewilderment destroyed her accus- 
tomed fluency, while the Englishman, relinquishing one 
whisker only to seize violently upon the other, mut- 
tered huskily : 

“ Most extraordinary, you know ! ” 

Then a silence fell upon the room, while Miss Newcome 
untied the package in her hand and glanced over the 
superscriptions. While she was thus engaged Flo walked 
into the room, stately, handsome, erect, with a brilliant 


214 


TBA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


color dyeing her smooth cheeks and the fire of righteous 
wrath illumining her big gray eyes. 

Simply acknowledging the presence of Lord Rainsforth’s 
son by a distant unsmiling bow she took her stand by 
Bella’s side and said in a caressing undertone : 

“ It is brutal to let you do it all by yourself, darling ; 
give me mine and I will do my share.” 

Bella handed her a package of letters ; then, with one 
open in her hand, she addressed herself immediately to the 
trembling man before her. Her eyes were ablaze with 
indignation, and the contempt that rang in the bell-like 
notes of her voice was withering in its effect. He cow- 
ered, and his nerveless hands fell limply by his side. 

“ I have said that Miss Dorsey and I, having been 
honored simultaneously with a proffer of your eternal 
devotion, have concluded to demand a more partial 
statement of the condition of your heart.” 

“ Pon honor, I don’t understand.” 

“Read, Flo.” 

A sense of the ludicrous flashing across Flo at this 
juncture caused her to throw into the reading of the very 
impassioned love-letter in her hand her most dramatic 
tones, until the vapid utterances came to a violent climax 
in the declaration on the part of Lord Rainsforth’s son, 
that “ he loved her as woman was never loved before, and 
that no imaginable vicissitudes of fortune could possibly 
ever alter his devotion.” 

“ Read, Bella,” she demanded in her turn, as she cast 
one flashing look of contemptuous defiance at the English- 
man, who had dropped heavily on the lounge and was 
staring at his two tormentors with lack-lustre eyes. 

“ You will please notice,” said Miss Newcome, in a 


MRS. NEWCOMB RECEIVES A SHOCK. 21 5 

ringing voice, “ that my communication bears the same 
date that Miss Dorsey’s does and is quite equal to it in 
its ardent tenor.” 

In her turn she read aloud a vapid love-letter with 
cruel deliberation, not omitting the “ yours eternally, 
etc., etc. — ” 

“By Jove, I never wrote you such a letter in my life ! ” 
said her victim, grasping bluntly at the only straw within 
his reach. 

“ Knowingly, no.” Bella turned to the envelojDe that 
had contained this avowal of deathless love : “ This is 
addressed to Miss Isa Race.” 

“ Isa Race ! ” His face w'as ashen white. He sprang 
from the lounge, but stopped with instinctive breeding as 
she began to speak again. 

“ No, you were no such bungler as to write duplicate 
love-letters to two young ladies under the same roof. 
And similar as the letters are in seeming, there is a vast 
difference of sentiment between them. I have several 
more, as has Miss Dorsey. Hers breathe a sincere 
desire for a response to your suit. You really wanted to 
marry her. You were only amusing yourself with Isa 
Race, the little insignificant working-girl who gave music 
lessons to your friend’s children. Mother, do you care to 
hear more of this delectable correspondence ? 

“ Go on,” Mrs. Newcome said, stiffly, while Flo laughed 
contemptuously as she selected a second epistle. 

But human endurance could be stretched no farther. 
With a muttered imprecation on himself, on the whole 
female sex and the American flag, as Flo afterward 
declared. Lord Rainsforth’s son strode rapidly out of 
their sight, bringing the front door to behind him with a 


2i6 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


bang which he certainly had not learned in the aristo- 
cratic atmosphere of his own lordly home. 

“ Who is Isa Race, and what does all this mean ? *’ 
Mrs. Newcome asked, looking bewildered, and angry too, 
for as the door shut Flo’s suitor from sight both girls had 
fallen to laughing in the most unseemly manner. 

“ Who is Isa Race ? Oh ! what a mamma, not to know 
her own daughter’s name ! ” 

“ Of course I know that your name is Isabella,” Mrs. 
Newcome answered, rapidly approaching her maximum of 
temper, “ and I suppose I knew the name of Race was 
yours legitimately too, but that does not explain the dis- 
graceful scene I have just been witness to, and I presume 
I am at least entitled to an explanation ; though I sup- 
pose in these days of filial independence and parental 
insignificance I should ask for enlightenment more 
humbly.” 

“ Filial independence and parental insignificance means 
me,” said Flo, placidly, walking over to the waste-paper 
basket to deposit the wreck of Mr. Ridgway’s love-letters, 
which she did with an audible exclamation of disgust 
and the unreasonable supplementary request that Bella 
would take her hands up-stairs for her and wash them 
with a disinfectant. 

Bella in the meantime turned to her mother and en- 
tered upon an explanation of the disagreeable scene they 
had just passed through, which embodied the reasons 
why she had made use of her two names, Isabella Race, 
dropping the Newcome temporarily for reasons that she 
considered quite justifiable. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


FLO RECEIVES A SHOCK. 

“ Now, mother, you shall hear all about what I have 
been doing, and if it had no other good result than the 
exposure of the Honorable Frederic Ridgway in his true 
character, I should be quite satisfied with my experiment.” 

“ Do you want me to go out ? ” Flo asked, coming 
back from the waste basket empty-handed and looking 
questioningly from Mrs. Newcome's flushed face to Bella’s 
resolute one. 

“ No ; stay where you are, my love.” This from Mrs. 
Newcome, who had never for a second given pleased 
audience to the idea of Lord Rainsforth’s son capturing 
the rich prize she had destined for Algernon. “ You 
two madcaps together have disposed of poor young 
Ridgway between you, and that does not cause me a 
pang; but if you have been helping Bella carry out any 
of her quixotic notions of independence I shall be seriously 
displeased, and shall express myself very plainly.” 

“ Flo is as completely in the dark as to what I have 
been doing the last two months, mother, as you are,” 
Bella said, quickly. “ Her visit to us has been such a mis- 
erable failure that I would not add one mite to her dis- 
comfort for all the world, so I would not tell her about 
it.” 

“I don’t think you have the slightest conception of 
217 


2i8 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


what a friend is, Bella, or ought to be. If you had you 
wouldn’t be talking such nonsense about my comfort or 
my discomfort. I’ve had a lovely time ; just to think of 
having a live lord’s son all to one’s self for ever so 
long ! ” 

They both laughed moderately. It was impossible to 
indulge their amusement to its full extent, with Mrs. 
Newcome looking on so severely and waiting so impa- 
tiently for some account of Isa Race. 

“ Mamma, do you remember when you sent Algie and 
me on to bring Flo to Newport to finish the summer?” 
Bella began, drawing Flo to a seat by her on the sofa by 
an energetic twitch on her over-skirt as she asked the 
question. 

“ Perfectly.” 

Well, when I got here I received a revelation that has 
entirely altered my views of life. I think the breaking of 
Flo’s arm was the most fortunate thing that ever happened 
to me. It has made a woman of me in place of a miser- 
able butterfly.” 

“ You are an unfeeling wretch,” Miss Dorsey said, 
calmy contemplating the arm that had been the cause of 
this great moral revolution ; “ but I am quite willing to 
sacrifice a few more bones on the altar of friendship if 
you’ll all promise to smile again.” 

Miss Newcome smiled then and there very sweetly, and 
resumed : 

“ When I got here and saw how desolate our house 
looked in its summer garb ; when I felt the horribly 
depressing effects of the dimly lighted halls and the great 
shrouded parlors, and thought of poor papa living here all 
the time ; when I looked for him from room to room of 


FLO RECEIVES A SHOCK. 


219 


this great empty house and found him at last sick and 
alone, stretched on the bed in his room, oh, mother, I felt 
like the veriest wretch on earth, and I went down on my 
knees there and then by poor papa, sound asleep, and 
begged God and him to forgive me.” 

“ My poor child, you were always very emotional. You 
must get it from the Newcomes ; the Vanderhoofs were 
fine-strung and possessed of an acute nervous system, but 
never allowed themselves to be overcome by the sensa- 
tional. Your father asleep in a room by himself made a 
tableau that affected you somewhat sensationally ; that 
was all.” 

Mrs. Newcome got in this vague bit of analysis while 
Bella was furtively wiping her eyes and trying to regain 
control of her voice. “And I declared then, mother, 
that I for one would never desert him again in the summer. 
I thought at first that it was only the depression incident 
upon the heat and the loneliness of his life that had 
overcome papa and that my company was all that was 
necessary ; but when I found out that his affairs were so 
horribly embarrassed I declared that he should be relieved 
of my support, if of nothing else.” 

“ Florine, my love,” said Mrs. Newcome, in her state- 
liest tones, “ perhaps 3^ou had better leave us alone. I 
find my daughter’s confession is likely to include a very 
plain exposure of her father’s private affairs.” 

Flo rose instantly, but stood irresolute before Mrs. 
Newcome. “Don’t be angry with me, please. I want to 
ask one question. I, too, thought perhaps Mr. Newcome 
was just a little under the weather financially and physi- 
cally. Please, dear Mrs. Newcome, tell me if he is still in 
trouble.” 


220 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ A slight embarrassment, my darling child, that is all.” 

Flo looked away from the haughty face of the mother to 
the troubled one of her life-long friend. It was a plead- 
ing look for the truth that she fastened on Bella’s upturned 
face. 

“ Papa is on the brink of ruin, Flo, and it will so soon 
be known to all the world that there is no use denying 
it to one of our dearest friends,” Bella said, answering 
that pleading look with blunt truthfulness. 

“ And you kept it from me ? Then I say again you 
don’t know how to be a friend, and I will never forgive 
you, never ! ” Then she went away and left the mother 
and daughter alone. 

“ If you have sufficiently exposed our family affairs to 
this child, suppose you return to your own remarkable 
role in this domestic drama,” Mrs. Newcome said, angril3^ 
She could forgive anything but inviting public inspection 
of her scars and wounds and failures. 

“ Flo is so beautifully truthful herself, mother, that I 
could as soon lie into the face of a child as tell an un- 
truth with those candid eyes of hers searching me through 
and through.” 

“ Another phase of your emotional nonsense,” said 
Mrs. Newcome, contemptuously; “but go on, go on.” 

* “ I declared, I say, that papa should be relieved of my 
support, if of nothing else. I thought of the money he 
had expended on my music and of how little use I made 
of my proficiency, except to amuse people who could well 
enough pay to be amused by professionals who played 
much better. I determined to give music lessons, mother, 
and if I had thought it possible to gain your consent I 
would have gone down on my knees to have obtained it.” 


FLO RECEIVES A SHOCK. 


221 


“ I should never have given it,” said Mrs. Newcome, 
with lofty decision. “ I am glad you spared yourself and 
me that ordeal.” 

“ I knew that, and that was the reason I did it with- 
out.” 

Mrs. Newcome started so violently at this unexpected 
announcement, that Rex, who had been slumbering 
soundly, coiled in a round heap on her lap, was precipi- 
tated to the floor before he had time to uncoil himself, a 
catastrophe which sent him waddling sulkily towards a 
far distant rug that promised a more tranquil retreat than 
his agitated mistress’ lap. 

“'Did it without! Am I to understand that my 
daughter, Isabella Newcome, has been giving music 
lessons ? ” 

“ Your daughter. Miss Isa Race, has been giving music 
lessons for two months past. I felt like a coward and a 
sneak, mother, advertising for pupils as Isa Race ; but if I 
had put my own name in full, the Newcome might have 
caught your eye and you would have interfered with 
me.” 

“ Interfered with you ! I should have had you locked up 
and put you on bread and water until you came to your 
senses,” her mother said, hotly. “ You have disgraced us 
all.” 

Bella reared her head proudly. 

“ If to put my hands to clean and honest toil is to dis- 
grace you, mother, then you are disgraced. As a music 
teacher I have been received with kindness and respect 
by all my employers.” 

“ Employers ! ” Mrs. Newcome groaned the word out. 


THA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


and covered her face with her smooth white hands. “ My 
daughter’s employers ! ” 

“ Yes, employers. In but one single instance have I 
met with disrespect or impertinence.” 

“ From some of your employers’ brats I presume.” 

“ Not at all. From the man whom my mother had 
selected for my husband. I must confess I was cowardly 
enough about this teaching of mine to desire to avoid 
detection, and have always gone to and from my pupils 
veiled and very plainly dressed. Lord Rainsforth’s son 
happened to call at one of the houses where I give les- 
sons one day just as I was coming down the front steps. 
He did not recognize Miss Newcome in the veiled music 
teacher, and did me the honor, he afterwards declared, to 
“ fall in love with the mystifying glimpses he got of my 
eyes and mouth, and with my trim form.” He perse- 
cuted me with insulting attentions — with notes and per- 
sonal pursuit of me — ” 

“And you—? ” 

“ I permitted them, meaning to make just the use of 
them that I did to-day. I wanted to show you just what 
stuff he was made of. The programme was not exactly 
as I had planned it, for I supposed he would renew his 
suit to me and that then I would crush him with my 
knowledge of his duplicity ; but when Flo, in a burst of 
disgust, showed me his first love-letter to her, we agreed 
between us to let him go on and ensnare himself more 
hopelessly than ever. I do not feel the slightest com- 
punction over the way I have treated him.” 

“ The girl who could play such a part towards her own 
mother,” said Mrs. Newcome, bitterly, “ could hardly be 
expected to feel compunction on any score. If you were 


FLO RECEIVES A SHOCK. 


SO bent on independence, I would rather you had dis- 
posed of your jewelry. That would have given you 
enough to gratify your fantastic nonsense, until this 
trouble of your father's had blown over.” 

“ I tried to do that for Algie’s sake. I wanted to keep 
him from worrying father for money.” 

“ Tried to do it ? ” 

Bella’s face, which had been turned steadily upon her 
rri'other up to this time, was now turned abruptly in 
another direction, while a glow suffused it from cheek to 
brow and neck. 

“ Yes, tried and failed. I can’t negotiate. I don’t 
know how. I shall never wear them again, though ; never. 
I hate the very sight of the glittering stones.” 

“ As usual,” Mrs. Newcome sighed, “ everything de- 
volves on me — ” 

A light foot-fall interrupted her, and she turned her 
head towards the open doorway that now framed Al- 
gernon’s handsome face. Since his peril he was more 
than ever precious in his mother’s sight. She held out 
both hands to him, but he did not look propitious. 
His face was dark with anger, and he w’alked past her to 
Bella, letting fall into her lap a heavy package. 

“There’s your trumpery,” he said, roughly, “but I’m 
compelled to say I think you might have taken a more 
delicate way of getting it back.” 

Bella looked at him in amazement, opened the package, 
and dropped her head in overwhelming confusion. The 
blood surged in a painful torrent into her face. Her 
heart beat tumultuously. Her humiliation was complete. 

“ This is too much ! O Algie, what haven’t I suffered 


224 


THA r GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


for your sake ? ” She flung the package upon the sofa 
and rushed from the room in tears. 

“ Now what?” Mrs. Newcome asked querulously, look- 
ing to Algernon for an explanation. “ Is Bella going to 
study for a tragedy actress ? Tm sure she’s quite equal 
to it. My life is becoming a burden.” 

“ It is some of Roberts’ confounded ofliciousness,” said 
Algernon ; but he had the grace to blush as he said it and 
to show other signs of embarrassment as he went into a 
partial and only half truthful explanation of the affair : 

‘^A little while back, when I was in such a devil of a 
fix, I came here to see if Bella would let me raise a 
little money on her solitaires and her pearl necklace. 
There would have been no trouble about redeeming the 
things at the proper time if that idiotic arrest hadn’t taken 
place before it was up. 

“ I explained matters to Bella when she came to the jail 
to see me, and gave her the two pawn-tickets, so she 
could redeem the trumpery herself, and she, thinking, 
I suppose, that Roberts didn’t have me quite enough 
under his thumb already, put them into his hands to at- 
tend to it for her. 

“ He walked into my room this morning with that pack- 
age and asked me if I would take it to my sister ; that 
was all he said, but he looked as black as the devil. 
By George, he acts as if he carried a bill of sale of the 
whole Newcome tribe in his vest pocket.” 

“ Oh ! if it’s only Mr. Roberts, it doesn’t make so much 
difference. It’s impossible for him not to know all of our 
affairs under the circumstances. It is all humiliatins: 
enough.” 

The part that it was impossible for her to know was 


FLO RECEIVES ANOTHER SHOCK. 


225 


that Bella was even then writhing under the torturing 
thought that Mr. Roberts was suspecting her of having 
broken her promise to him and that she would have to 
expose Algernon to clear herself, which she could not do. 

Her pocket-book had been returned to her through a 
messenger-boy. She had had no occasion to examine 
the card-pocket since ; had not even known who had 
found it and returned it, but presumed the finder had 
been guided by the name and address on the visiting 
cards contained in it. 

Up to that moment she had been oblivious of the pres- 
ence of the tickets in her case. She went now to look 
for them. They were gone, and in their stead was a 
small .slip of paper signed in full by the junior partner. 
This is the way it read : 

“ At risk of being condemned for officious imperti- 
nence I make use of the tickets in order to protect a 
helpless old man’s honor in some measure.” 

The hardness and the coldness of this explanation 
steeled Bella to the kindness-of it, and she wiped the tears 
from her eyes, angrily determined to make Mr. Roberts 
rue his lack of faith in her. “ He thinks I have lied 
to him,” she moaned over and over again. 

In the meantime, while Bella was battling fiercely with 
the inward tempest this last miserable mortification had 
plunged her into, and Mrs. Newcome was boring Alger- 
non with a weak solution of a moral maternal lecture, 
Florine Dorsey was waiting patiently for an answer to a 
telegram she had sent off immediately on leaving Bella 
and Mrs. Newcome. 

Her telegram was to her father, and read : 

IS 


226 THAT GIRL FROM TEXAS. 

) 

“ You said you would come for me the moment I tele- 
graphed for you. Please come now, right off.” 

And the answer came back promptly : 

“ Will be with you as soon as possible.” 

“ Dear old pop,” said Miss Dorsey, smiling trium- 
phantly as she read the few words. “ He’ll make it all 
right for that poor, dear, long-suffering old man.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


MISCONSTRUED. 

The days which must necessarily intervene before that 
prompt response of her father’s could possibly be put into 
effect and he really “ be with her ’’'were desperately long 
days to Flo, for, as she afterwards explained to Bella, so 
much had been taken away from her suddenly in the 
amusing personage of Mr. Ridgway that she felt quite 
bereaved. Whenever time hung too heavily on her hands, 
however, she bethought her of the diary she had promised 
Dr. Rogers to keep. 

It was a peculiar-looking affair, long hiatuses in the 
dates, many erasures, and not a few blots. Such as it 
was, with all its imperfections on its head, she drew it out 
of the table drawer the evening of the day on which she 
had despatched her telegram, and made an unusually 
long entry in it. 

“ I’m sure I haven’t the least idea how all this nonsense 
will read to Tom, if ever he does muster the courage to 
wade through this blotty diary ; but he has no one but 
himself to thank for such a stupid record. 

“ He will derive some satisfaction, I hope, from the 
discovery that, so far, I have found no man to compare 
with my dear old honest, uncompromising, ridiculous 
Tom. 

‘‘ I’m awfully lonesome to-night. More so than I’ve 
227 


228 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


been any time since I came here. Mrs. Newcome must 
have given my poor Bella a fearful scolding, either 
about that music-teaching business, or about letting that 
precious sprig of nobility slip through her fingers. The 
poor dear has been invisible to me ever since I left her 
alone with her irate mamma this morning. I noticed 
Mason taking something to eat to her room at lunch- 
time, and they say she has a headache. Don’t believe 
one word of it. 

R. Algernon honored us, Mrs. Newcome and me, with 
his presence at lunch. I really do believe he is going to 
have the effrontery to try to court me. I wonder what 
he does think I am made of. That poor Miss Neuman ! 
They say she has gone to Europe, and declares she will 
never come back to America again. Small wonder ! 

“Only eight o’clock, and I’ve yawned at least ten times 
in as many minutes. I do believe I miss that horrible 
little Ridgway. His empty talk and his grotesque gri- 
maces and his silly compliments and sickening attempts 
to say something tender afforded me an immense amount 
of amusement. I suppose I would miss Rex too, if he 
suddenly disappeared from my horizon. Horrid little 
beast! Mrs. Newcome is perfectly devoted to him. I 
wonder what has come over Mr. Roberts. He used to 
be here so often. Never comes at all now. I do hope 
that isn’t what’s the matter with my precious Bella. If it 
is, there’s some hitch on her side. For I know he loves 

her and I believe she loves him almost as well as I do . 

There now, sir, if you expected to find your own name 
written down there in full you are properly punished for 
your presumption. That blank may stand for anybody 
but you. 


MISCONSTRUED. 


229 


“ I like Mr. Roberts. He’s just perfect. Strong and 
tender and calm and considerate, and with such a 
quietly self-possessed way about him. How could a girl 
help loving him, unless, indeed, she loved somebody else 
better ? I wish he was here to-night — Mr. Roberts, not 
Tom. He and I are the best sort of friends. He thinks 
Bella just one remove from perfection. 

“ News from Mr. Newcome reports him gaining in flesh 
but intensely and incurably melancholy. It isn’t incur- 
able. Papa will make it all right when he comes. The 
idea of as good a man as Mr. Newcome moping himself 
to death for a few thousand dollars. He is a dear old 
gentleman, and I love him too well not to try to do some- 
thing for him. Mrs. Newcome will call me officious 
doubtless, but I don’t care. Least said is not always 
soonest mended; and how could papa help him if I didn’t 
tell him something about it ? I wish he was here to-night. 
Oh! just suppose Dr. Rogers should take a notion to 
come on with him — de-li-cious I ” 

A short hiatus of only a few days occurred after that 
culmination of Flo’s hopes in a long-drawn-out “ deli- 
cious,” and she wrote again in her “ blotty ” diary : 

“ Father will be here to-morrow. Of course they know 
he is coming, but nobody susiDects my agency in the mat- 
ter. Bella looks at me very sadly and declares she 
doesn’t wonder I am anxious to get away from a house 
that has been little better than a tomb to me, but she is 
good enough to say she will miss me awfully. Poor Bella ! 
it must be that she has overworked herself at her music 
lessons. She’s getting awfully thin, and her face is just 
too sad for anything. Mr. Roberts is acting in the most 


230 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


remarkable manner ; never comes near the house nor sends 
any messages, so far as I can discover. 

“ He has done it. I knew he was going to. Oh ! 
the cool impudence of it. I could hardly keep from 
laughing in his face. I mean R. Algernon’s. He asked 
me last night to marry him, declared his whole soul went 
out to me at first sight and he was only afraid to declare 
his passion because he thought others were in higher 
favor with me. I couldn’t help telling him that there 
were several dozen people very much higher in favor 
with me than he was — I know it was mean ; he looked 
blank — said ‘ aw, really,’ in as English a style as he could 
manage on short notice, told me good-bye very solemnly 
and reverentially, and went away. 

“ Mrs. Newcome upbraided me to-night for having driven 
her darling boy away so harshly that he is going to leave 
the city — can’t bear to breathe the same air with my cruel 
but adored self, you know. I told her rather than that I 
should be the means of separating her son from her, I 
had best go somewhere out in the country close by and 
wait for papa to take me home. Then she upbraided me 
worse than ever and said, No, she only wanted me to 
reconsider her precious boy’s suit ; she was quite sure 
Algernon would never love anyone as well as he did me. 

“ I mystified her by telling her that to my certain knowl- 
edge he actually did love one person at this time a 
thousand, thousand times better than he did me. I didn’t 
tell her that that one person was his own dear, dainty, 
useless little self. I left her buckling a new collar 
around Rex’s fat throat and came off to do this scratching 
in my diary. 

“ I’m a little frightened at what I’ve undertaken and 


Misconstrued. 


23 


don’t just know how to go about it when papa gets here, 
unless I just bring him and Mr. Roberts plump together 
as soon as he arrives and tell them what I telegraphed 
for papa for. They are both so good and sensible and 
cool-headed they are certain to do the right thing. 

“ Oh ! what a blessing such men are to poor, weak, bewil- 
dered, stumbling women. To-morrow will make every- 
thing right. Fm sleepy — good night, Tom, my pre- 
cious ! ” 

But to-morrow did not “ make everything right.” 

Bella was making melancholy pretence of writing some 
letters, the next day, when Mrs. Newcome came into her 
room and threw herself down into the easiest chair at 
hand, looking her most dissatisfied and querulous self. 

“ That Florine Dorsey is a most disappointing sort of 
creature,” she said, “ and I really begin to think that for 
all her air of sweet simplicity and her candid eyes she is 
entirely too deep for you, or me either, to fathom. She 
has been making fools of us all, Bella, and there is no 
room left to doubt it after what I have seen this morning.” 

On her mother’s entrance, Bella had laid her pen down, 
respectfully minded to give her patient audience, although 
she never anticipated anything very pleasant when she 
came to her with that expression of martyrdom on her 
face. 

“ Please don’t turn against Flo, mother ; at least, don’t 
backbite her until she is from under our own roof as 
a guest.” 

“ Backbite her ! Is a bald statement of facts that have 
fallen under my own astonished observation backbiting ? 
Is saying that I do not approve of young lady’s driving 


232 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


to down-town offices and capturing unmarried men and 
driving off with them, backbiting ? ” 

“ I don’t understand you in the least,” Bella said, look- 
ing more bewildered than shocked, for her confidence in 
Flo was not easily shaken. “ I thought she had gone to 
meet her father.” 

“ Perhaps then in future it would be just as well if you 
tried to understand me before accusing me of so low a 
practice as backbiting,” Mrs. Newcome answered, caus- 
tically. “ I simply tell you what I saw with my own eyes 
this morning.’^ 

“ But who was the unmarried man that she captured 
and drove off with ? ” 

“ Mr. Roberts.” 

“ Mr. Roberts ! ” 

Bella repeated the name mechanically, but the room 
seemed to swim before her eyes and her mother’s portly 
form in the easy-chair assumed abnormal proportions. It 
seemed to her that in the one awful second ^cceeding 
that astonishing piece of information she gauged her own 
fullest capacity for suffering. She felt the blood reced- 
ing from her heart, leaving it cold and dead in her 
bosom. She wondered, curiously, if she would be able to 
meet Flo, when she came back, to the house, quite as if 
she knew nothing about all this. She hoped that she 
would, and all her* powers of self-control seemed to sud- 
denly concentrate themselves in the necessity for making 
that effort. It seemed hours to her before her mother’s 
complaining tones broke the spell of that painful silence. 
In reality it was but a second : 

“ Yes, Mr. Roberts. And now I can see it all. She is 
simply one of those natural born flirts who cannot resist 


M/SCOJVS TK U ED. 


233 

the temptation to make every man she comes in contact 
with propose to her. 

“ While you were absorbed in attendance on your poor 
father, she used her wiles successfully to win Lord Rains- 
forth’s son from his allegiance to you. Not that she 
wanted him herself, but he was a man, and it was just one 
more bead to string on the rosary of her conquests. 
Some girls like to count their proposals as an Indian 
warrior counts his scalp-locks. Young Ridgway disposed 
of, she turned her batteries on your poor brother, and it 
was only yesterday that she refused him with an amount 
of coolness and haughtiness that would have sat much 
better on a princess of the blood royal than on a coun- 
try girl from a Texas plantation. And now it is Mr. 
Roberts. 

“ I did think he was cool-headed enough to see through 
her, but there’s no knowing what a woman can do with a 
pair of handsome eyes and that pleading sort of voice.” 

“ I don’t know yet what you have seen,” said Bella, 
trying in vain to make her voice sound quite natural. 

“ Well, this is what I have seen,” Mrs. Newcome said, 
assuming a more easy position before entering on her 
narration. “ I knew this was the morning that she looked 
for her father, and you heard me tell her, at breakfast, that 
Mitchell and the victoria were entirely at her disposal.” 

“ Yes,” impatiently from Bella. 

“ And I suppose you noticed her reply. I thought at 
the time that she blushed very unnecessarily over it. She 
said she had some little odd jobs to do down town before 
train time and that she could take a carriage at Madison 
Square and drive to the depot for her father, without 
keeping Mitchell and the horses from me so long.” 


234 


thA t girl from Texas. 


“ Yes, I heard that too.” 

“ Well, it so happened that I needed to see Mr. Roberts 
myself this morning. Your father’s affairs are so entirely 
in his hands that in a little while I don’t suppose I will 
be able to buy a loaf of bread without his permission.” 

“ It is awfully humiliating, I know,” Bella said, with 
bitter emphasis. 

“ Humiliating ! I should say it was. But I must do 
Mr. Roberts the justice to say that no man could be more 
delicate and considerate than he is, and so long as he 
came here and I could talk matters over with him in my 
own parlor it was all comfortable enough, but since his 
remarkably sudden estrangement from us — ” Mrs. New- 
come suddenly leaned forward and fixing a searching 
glance on her daughter’s pale face, asked bluntly : 
“ Isabella Newcome, have you refused that young man ? ” 

“ I have never been accorded that privilege,” Bella 
said, with a sudden proud uplifting of her head ; “ but you 
were giving me your morning’s experience.” 

“ Yes, so I was, and a shocking experience it was. Well, 
as I w’as saying, it was absolutely necessary that I should 
consult with Mr. Roberts about your brother. He is 
quite bent on a trip to California, so I ordered the carriage 
and drove down to the office. When Mitchell got down 
from the box to open the door for me he said, — and I can 
recall now what a disagreeable look was on his face at 
the time, a sort of wish-I-could-smile look, you know, — 
‘ I’m afraid we’ve just missed Mr. Roberts ; he is getting 
into a carriage, ma’am.’ 

“ I put my head out just in time to see Mr. Roberts step 
into the carriage, a public hack it was. ‘ Stop him,’ I 
said to Mitchell, and tell him I only want to speak to 


MISCONSTRUED. 


235 


him.' ‘ But there’s a lady in the carriage,’ he answered, 
and inadvertently I repeated — ‘ A lady — who > ’ ‘ Miss 

Dorsey,’ Mitchell said, and actually had the impertinence 
to stand there with a smile on his face, waiting for my 
next order. I looked out of the opposite window of the car- 
riage : the hack had turned ’round at the door, and with 
my own eyes I saw Florine Dorsey sitting in it talking 
to your father’s partner in such an animated style that 
neither one of them saw me. 

“ They had eyes for no one but themselves. I can 
assure you I never was so indignant and so outraged in 
all my life. And there stood Mitchell, looking as imperti- 
nent as he dared and as respectful as he could. Of 
course he has told the whole story over by this time in 
the servants’ room, with illustrations. And that was her 
‘ odd jobs ’ that she must, attend to before train time. A 
very odd job indeed. And now do you agree with me that 
your truthful Flo, with the candid eyes, is a deep one ? ” 
She is our guest, mother. Don’t let us prejudge her, 
please. Ah ! don’t let us judge her at all. What is it to 
us if Mr. Roberts falls in love with her ten thousand 
times over?” 

“ You are a queer creature,” Mrs. Newcome said, dis- 
gustedly, rising with difficulty from the low easy-chair and 
going away without another word. 

But Bella had spent all her self-control in that last loyal 
effort to defend the absent. Her head dropped wearily 
on the desk in front of her as soon as her mother closed 
the door, and she gave herself up completely to the storm 
of passionate jealousy, loving, hating, longing, and regret- 
ting, that held full sway over her for hours and finally 
left her in a state of absolute physical exhaustion. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


MYSTIFICATION. 

It might have been weeks instead of hours for all the 
pain and the brain-racking conjectures and the torment of 
soul she had endured, lying there prone upon the 
lounge, with the room darkened to its utmost capacity, 
when she was finally forced to give reluctant attention to 
the repeated knocks on her door. 

She had lost all note of time. It seemed in some re- 
mote period of the past that her mother had told her 
about seeing Flo Dorsey and Mr. Roberts in that car- 
riage together. She wished they had driven on forever 
out of her sight, but they hadn’t, for that was Flo now, 
knocking at the door — knocking impatiently and per- 
sistently. And she was her guest and must be treated 
courteously. She rose from the lounge and almost 
dragged herself to the door. She stumbled over a has- 
sock at the foot of the lounge. The room was so dark 
that it must be wearing toward night. 

Her hand trembled as she laid it on the door- 
knob. How hard it was going to be not to let Flo know 
that she knew ! But it was not at all hard, for as she 
opened the door she admitted Flo and a burst of gas-light 
together from the hall that made her involuntarily shield 
her red and swollen eyes with her hand. 

“You poor darling! that miserable old head aching 
236 


MYSTIFICA TION. 


237 


yet ? Let me come in and mesmerize you as I used to 
mesmerize mamma’s nervous headaches away. Tve 
enough vitality in me to-night to make a galvanic battery 
of myself, if you prefer electricity. Oh, Bella, I’m so 
happy, so absurdly happy, and I just couldn’t rest until 
I told you all about it. Why, you are shivering ! You 
haven’t had a chill ? ” 

She had clasped her arm around Bella’s waist, school- 
girl fashion, and drawn her backward into the room 
towards the lounge. 

“ Let me light the gas,” Bella said, in a husky voice, 
trying to free herself from Flo’s affectionate proximity. 

“No, we don’t want any gas. I like the room best so. 
I’ve got such a lot of nonsense to tell you, Bella, that I’d 
rather sit in the dark until I get over the sentimental 
part of it.” 

“Just as you please,” Bella said, coldly resigned ; and 
she made no further resistance when Flo finally drew her 
down on the lounge, with her arm still clasped about her 
waist. 

“ First of all, let me make you quite comfortable with 
pillows and things, then Til sit by you and rub your poor 
dear head.” 

“My head doesn’t ache, Florine • and I am quite ready 
to listen to all you have to tell me,” Bella answered, in a 
tired sort of voice. 

“ ‘ Florine ! ’ My ! how distant that sounds ! You used 
to call me Florine at school when you were mad with me 
for eating all the pickles up or some transgression of an 
equally criminal character.” 

Her attempt to make Bella laugh was a dismal failure. 
So she suddenly grew serious herself. 


238 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“You are angry with me, and I know what for.*’ 

“ Then if you know what for you ought not to have 
insisted upon coming in to-night,” said Bella, mortified 
beyond expression because her voice would break and 
tell of the tears not far away. 

“ I had no idea you would take it so seriously. I think 
he might have been gentlemanly enough not to have 
spoken about it before I left the house. I’m sure, if I’m 
not to have a girl friend because I don’t want to marry 
all their brothers, I’m likely to have a very lonely time of 
it in this world.” 

Bella was so immensely relieved to find that the true 
source of her dejection had escaped detection that she 
willingly lent herself to Flo’s mistake. 

“ Poor Algie ! of course I feel sorry for anything that 
disappoints him keenly enough to send him from home.” 

He doesn’t need to go away from home on my 
account,” Flo answered, hotly, “for I am going so very 
soon myself. But if you had ever been in love yourself, 
Bella, you would know how absolutely insipid and stupid 
and uninteresting the one man of all the world can make 
all other men.” 

If she had ever been in love 1 Bella clasped her cold 
hands tightly together, feeling grateful for the shielding 
darkness of the room and for Flo’s petulant contin- 
uance. 

“ I declare, you make me feel as if I had no right to be 
as happy as I am to-night, Bella. I just couldn’t stay 
away from you any longer. I wanted you to be the first 
one to congratulate me and tell me you were glad I was 
going to be married.” 

“ I do congratulate you, Flo, if you love the man you 


MYSTIFICA TION. 


239 

are going to be married to.” No one will ever be able to 
compute the amount of heroism those words cost. 

“ Love him ! Better than I do anybody in the wide, 
wide world. And he is worthy of so much better a 
woman, Bella — he so strong, and patient, and tender, and 
wise. Oh ! my darling, if you were only as happy as I am 
to-night, this would be just a perfect day. The hours 
have fairly flown. I’ve been in a dream of bliss since I 
left this house.” 

“ Winged by the man you. love so well } ” Bella asked, 
beginning to marvel at her own new found powers of dis- 
simulation. 

“ Yes, winged by the man I love so well. I expect we 
talked an ample share of nonsense, but we were also very 
practical. So practical that I expect I will have to 
get you to begin right off to help me do my shopping. 
My beloved says it must be very immediate. But it’s a 
shame for me to chatter on so and you with your head 
aching so badly. You’re coming down to dinner, aren’t 
you, Bella. Papa and he are to be here.” 

“ I think not,” Bella said, drawing herself out of Flo’s 
arms to conceal the shivering she could not control. 
Who knew better than she how strong and patient and 
tender and wise this man who had been stolen from her 
could be ? Was she called on to act as a foil to Flo’s 
radiant beauty to-night ? Was she called on to put her 
pale cheeks and sad eyes in unfavorable contrast with the 
happy brilliancy of her friend ? On the other hand, was 
it not a refinement of cruelty, almost an impertinence, 
this coming back to the house for the first time as Flo’s 
accepted lover ? She was weighing it seriously within 
herself, when Flo said, with a nervous laugh, 


240 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ He admits it will be something of an ordeal facing 
you. But this delicious day will be all spoiled for me if 
you come down-stairs looking frozen and distant. Oh ! 
my darling Bella, if you ever had been in love you would 
know how ridiculously unreasonable a girl feels. I told 
him to-day that I shouldn’t wonder yet if he did not 
sorely repent him of his infatuation, after seeing you 
to-night.” 

“ Then you were grossly indelicate, and you almost 
make me hate you,” said Miss Newcome ; “ please go 
away and let me dress for dinner. I do not intend to 
show your father the disrespect of absenting myself. I 
shall certainly be on hand for dinner.” 

She could not see the triumphant smile that curled 
Flo’s red lips as she got up promptly from the lounge, 
swept her a stately courtesy, and went away. Bella 
double locked the door almost immediately after her 
exit, and then lighting every gas jet in the room she 
leaned forward and examined her own face critically in 
the glass. 

“ I look like a fright,” she said aloud, “ but all that 
dress can do to make up for my deficiencies shall be 
dpne to-night. He shall not think I am a wreck of his 
own making.” 

With which intention she proceeded to select her 
evening costume with the utmost deliberation, and by 
the time she was fully arrayed in a combination suit of 
dark-blue velvet and silk, with ruffles of fine lace at her 
throat and wrists, with a big bunch of pale-pink roses 
fastened over, the region of her fast-beating heart, she 
certainly did not suggest the idea of a wreck of any- 
body’s making. 


MYSTIFICA TION. 


241 


Her eyes were ablaze with the indignation of a sup- 
posed insult ; her cheeks were suffused with a flush that 
was in reality a fever-flush, but added the last needed 
touch to her beauty, which on this occasion was almost 
regal. She would not go down until the last moment. 
She knew full well the value of a late entrance into an 
assemblage. 

Just across the hall, Flo, engaged in a like deliberate 
selection of the most becoming costume in her possession, 
was indulging in reflections of a very different character. 
In fact, hers were of Such a pleasing nature that more 
than once while arraying herself with unusual regard to 
effect, she laughed aloud : 

“ I am satisfied. It was a cruel experiment, but I was 
just determined to find out whose fault it was. He’s dead 
in love with her, and she’s dead in love with him. I could 
feel the poor darling shivering in my arms when she 
thought I meant Mr. Roberts. So much for pronouns. 
How was she to know that Dr. Rogers had come on with 
papa, and that mamma had sent along by him a sort of 
advanced blessing. Oh, this has been such a delicious 
day ! I’ve found out all I want to know about Bella ; now 
I’ve got to fathom Mr. Roberts. Dear me ! what a posi- 
tive manceuvrer I’m getting to be. I ought to be either 
very proud of myself or very much ashamed of myself.” 

It certainly had been a day of most unprecedented 
mental activity for Miss Dorsey. Taking Mr. Roberts 
from his office desk by a most peremptory demand, writ- 
ten on the back of her visiting card, to the effect that 
she must see him immediately, she had captured him 
and ordered the driver towards the depot, where she ex- 
pected to find her father, explaining to him en route that 
16 


242 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


her father’s pilgrimage to New York was mainly on ac- 
count of Mr. Newcome’s troubles. 

“ I may as well tell you now, Mr. Roberts, that the 
first night I spent in Mr. Newcome’s house I discovered 
that something was awfully wrong with him. You have 
suspected, I believe, but you have never known positively 
that I got that little hurt preventing him from hurting 
himself. I wrote to papa (papa and I tell each other 
everything) that I thought Mr. Newcome was in great 
trouble, perhaps about money, and asked him if he 
wouldn’t offer to help him out of it, for papa is rich and 
has only one silly girl to dress and care for. He wrote 
back that it would be rather an impertinently officious 
thing to offer to help a man before he acknowledged the 
need of help, but if the time ever came when I thought 
he was really needed to telegraph for him and he would 
come. Long before I was born, Mr. Newcome helped 
papa with the money that gave him his start in life. 
Well, the other day, when I found out accidentally 
that my poor precious Bella was actually wearing herself 
to a shadow giving music lessons, because she would not 
tax her father with her support, I just thought the time 
had come for papa to put in his oar. And oh ! he pulls 
a vigorous one, I can tell you. So he’s to be here this 
morning, and I can’t begin to explain the ins and outs of 
it all to him, so I just thought I’d hand him over to you 
as soon as he got here, and between you two, you with 
your knowledge of affairs, and he with his anxiety to help 
an old friend, would get it all right. Now, please say you 
don’t think me impertinently officious.” 

She turned pleadingly towards him in the carriage. 
He was looking out of the window abstractedly. 


/ 


MYSTIFICATION. 243 

“I don’t believe you have heard one word I said,” 
she exclaimed, irritated at his absent look. 

“ I beg your pardon. I heard every word you said, and 
was thinking how queer it was that a young girl’s hand 
should, after all, be the strong one to lift my poor old 
friend out of the mire.” 

“ Oh, don’t compliment, please. I adore Bella, and it 
breaks my heart to see her unhappiness. 

“ Is Miss Newcome unhappy ” 

“ How hatefully cold and cynical your voice sounds 
asking such a superfluous question ! Please tell me what 
she has to make her anything else.” 

“The unalterable devotion of Lord Rainsforth’s son.” 

“You say that, when you know how utterly she de- 
spises him ! ” 

“ I know nothing of the sort. I know that she permits 
his escort when she is going the rounds in rather ques- 
tionable parts of town carrying out her quixotic ideas of 
independence.” 

“ Permitted his escort ! If you had not dropped us 
all so remarkably lately, you might have heard the sequel 
to that part of my poor Bella’s annoyances. If you’ll 
promise to be more sociable and reasonable. I’ll tell you 
about that.” 

“ I will try to be reasonable, but as for being sociable, 
my dear young lady, you can form no conception of the 
amount of business I have to attend to in Mr. Newcome’s 
absence.” 

“ It is not business that keeps you from Bella New- 
come’s side, Mr. Roberts,” she said, daringly; “you used 
to think her little short of perfection.” 

“ I am afraid you are right,” he answered very gravely. 


244 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


“ Afraid?” 

“ Yes, afraid. Pedestals are always an uncertain sort of 
things. — But if I’m not mistaken, that is the train your 
father ought to be in.” 

He opened the carriage door, and with Flo on his arm 
hurried into the depot. 

There was a sudden lifting of the weight upon his 
heart. Perhaps, after all, he had been doing his dar- 
ling an injustice. Oh ! if she could but explain away 
the darkness, and the horrible suspicions that had en- 
veloped him as in a pall for these past weeks. Bella un- 
happy ! Could it be, after all — 

But the rush and scurry of a railroad depot is inimi- 
cal to sentimental reflections, especially with an excit- 
able young female swinging to one’s arm. Flo gave his 
arm a most unnecessary jerk at this particular juncture. 

“ There’s papa ! that dear old fat gentleman, with the 
big flapping black hat on, — such a Southern old hat, — 
standing looking a trifle bewildered on the steps, and the 
people behind him looking as if they wanted to punch 
him in the back with their bags. The people behind him 
— is — why — yes — Dr. Rogers ! ” 

She was no longer swinging to his protecting arm, she 
was already rods in advance of him, with two hands out- 
stretched, the one to the “ dear old fat gentleman with 
the big flapping black hat,” the other to a tall, straight 
young man, who sent love-glances ahead of him from a 
pair of very speaking brown eyes. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


CLOUDS LIFTING. 

Mr. Roberts returned to his office in a brighter 
mood, after an interview with Mr. Dorsey in the reading- 
room of his hotel. The interview had lasted for more than 
two hours and was to result in material benefit to Mr. 
Newcome, his partner, all of which was of course highly 
satisfactory to Mr. Roberts. 

But that was not what made him feel so very much 
lightened in spirits that he actually whistled a tune in 
his office then, which he had all to himself at the 
luncheon hour, a period of time which always received 
prompt recognition from his clerk and his little type- 
writer. 

If an explanation of his sensations had been com- 
pulsory, Mr. Roberts would have been forced to 
acknowledge that the two things which had made him 
feel so immensely better-humored, all of a sudden, were 
the facts of Miss Newcome’s unhappiness and of Lord 
Rainsforth’s son’s discomfiture and departure for the Old 
World. 

He had had no further private conversation with 
Miss Dorsey, after that ecstatic exclamation of hers on 
discovering Dr. Rogers with her father ; but crumbs go a 
long way with a starving man. And in the region of his 
heart Mr. Roberts was conscious of excessive and in- 
creasing hunger. 


245 


246 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


The junior partner was not very young ; he never had 
been the sort of young man who could fall in and out of 
love with equal facility. Bella, as he had once believed 
in her, had been so altogether soul-satisfying that when 
he felt compelled, by his own rigid code of honor, to dis- 
believe in her, it had never occurred to him as possible 
that he could ever quite recover from his poignant disap- 
pointment in her, or desire to replace her image with 
that of another woman. 

Flo had said, with such evident scorn for his stupidity, 
that the Ridgway escort business could be satisfactorily 
explained away, that for the first time it occurred to him 
so might the pawn-ticket business. He flushed with a 
delicious sense of exultation over the reflection, that 
perhaps his prolonged silence and absence might have 
something to do with that unhappiness of Bella’s, which 
made her friend’s “ heart ache.” But how to take the 
first remedial measure ? 

“ Oh, my darling,” he exclaimed, in the eagerness of 
revulsion from his great disappointment to renewed hope, 
“ if I have indeed misjudged you, how tender and good I 
will be to you to win your forgiveness and to make you 
forget it I ” 

He stopped whistling, and was busily casting about in 
his mind for some pretext to call at Mrs. Newcome’s 
after deliberately absenting himself for so many weeks, 
when the knot of his difficulty was cut in the most unex- 
pected manner. 

A messenger boy arrived with a note from Mrs. New- 
come, in one corner of which was the initialled request 
that he would please reply. This is what it contained, 
and it pleased him very much to reply : 


CLOUDS LIFTIJSTG. 


247 


“My dear Mr. Roberts : Our young Southern friend, 
Miss Dorsey, with the freedom of action that is so marked 
a characteristic of hers at all times ” (Mrs. Newcome 
regarded that sentence with a large degree of compla- 
cency. She considered that it embodied a crushing blow 
at the two indiscreet personages she had surprised in a 
public hack that morning) “ has invited two strange 
gentlemen here to dinner, without consulting me. Her 
father and a friend of her father’s, is all I am told about 
it. 

“ I suppose the giving of this invitation and the accepting 
of it are quite in accordance with the lax social customs 
of Miss Dorsey’s Texas home ; but imagine my discom- 
fiture ! My son, by reason of a most unpleasant recent 
interview with Miss Dorsey, absolutely refuses to return 
to the house so long as she is our guest ; so I am left 
to entertain two strange men at dinner, with no one to 
represent the head of the house. In my sad perplexity 
I turn to you to beg you to come to me for dinner, if you 
have no engagement so pressing that you cannot break 
it.” 

From that moment the junior partner began to believe 
that there might be such a thing as special providences, 
and complacently regarded himself as the object of one. 

His answer conveyed to Mrs. Newcome the information 
that he had another engagement, which he must cancel 
in order to come to her, so that if he should happen to be 
a little late she need not give him up. 

He was inexcusably late according to his own some- 
what antiquated notions of etiquette, and when h6 entered 
the parlors he received a decided shock, that made him 
wish most vigorously that he had returned a different 


248 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


answer to Mrs. Newcome’s invitation and left her to 
scramble out of her quandary as best she might. 

There sat Mrs. Newcome, decorously resplendent in a 
combination of black velvet and satin, and quite fully 
occupying all of the sofa left to her by Mr. Dorsey, who 
was as big of body as he was of heart and brain, which 
is according the Texas planter ample physical girth. It 
was a renewal of old acquaintanceship with him and Mrs. 
Newcome, and the fund of reminiscence seemed inex- 
haustible so far as he was concerned ; and there sat Flo, 
happily absorbed in and absorbing Dr. Rogers, there 
by the bay window behind the lace curtains, where the 
flowers bloomed perennially. 

Certainly he was not needed there ; no, nor anywhere 
else, he speedily and moodily concluded, taking rapid 
note of Bella’s absence, as he bowed deferentially over 
his hostess’ plump white hand. Flo advanced towards 
him, radiant with happiness. Dr. Rogers lingered be- 
hind, sniffing at the flowers in an absent sort of fashion, 
while his eyes followed Flo’s regal form adoringly as she 
swept towards Mr. Roberts. He knew all about Roberts, 
by this time. Splendid-looking fellow he was too. Miss 
Newcome would do a good thing in marrying her father’s 
partner. He didn’t envy him, however. 

It was just at the juncture when Flo, putting her hand 
confidingly into Mr. Roberts’, leaned forward to say to 
him in a low voice, with her luminous eyes raised to 
his, “ I have played a cruel joke on my darling Bella, and 
you alone can compensate for it,” that Bella herself 
appeared with the noiselessness of a ghost in the doorway. 

She thought, poor child, that she had fortified herself 
to meet just such a sight; but for a second the room swam 


CLOUDS LIFTING. 


249 


before her. She could see four persons and they all 
seemed to be staring at her in the most heartless and 
maddening manner. 

She could see her mother, sitting very erect in her 
ample draperies, with her handsome eyes blazing disap- 
proval at her for her miserable weakness in not being 
better able to hide her hurt from public inspection. She 
could see a large florid old gentleman, in an old-fash- 
ioned white Marseilles waistcoat, regarding her with 
simple surprise from a pair of benevolent blue eyes. 
She could see Flo, looking so tall and stately and happy, 
standing there by Mr. Roberts, with the love-light in her 
eyes. Ah ! cruel ! Him she could not see distinctly. 
She could not, would not, look at him. 

All four figures mingled and commingled and floated 
confusedly before her eyes. Was she going to com- 
plete her disgrace by fainting there before them all 1 
She put out her hand gropingly, in a pathetic gesture of 
greeting. It was seized by Flo, who, frightened at her 
deadly pallor, had swept towards her and whispered 
eagerly in her ear, feeling that she was called on to avert 
a scene : 

“My darling, please don’t look like a death’s-head 
when I’m so happy now that Tom has come.” Then in a 
raised voice, “ Dr. Rogers, if you’ve finished botanizing 
I want to introduce you to my friend.” 

“ Dr. Rogers ! ” 

Bella repeated the name softly, as in a dream, me- 
chanically following Flo’s lead across the room until 
she reached the sofa, where only her mother was seated 
now, Mr. Dorsey standing awaiting her recognition. 

She remembered putting a very cold hand into Mr. 


250 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


Dorsey’s ; she remembered smiling wistfully up into 
his kind old face ; she remembered looking up, it seemed 
to her, to an immense altitude to look into the. face of 
Flo’s lover, with a sense of immense gratitude to him in 
her heart ; she remembered another hand stretched out to 
her, a hand that seemed to draw her upward from the 
sofa until she stood close, close by the side of the one 
man of all the earth to her ; she remembered being led 
very gently but very firmly along the parlor, through the 
library, — they seemed to be miles long, — until she felt 
the rush of the cool night air on her cheeks ; then she 
heaved a long-drawn sigh and stood still, trembling from 
head to foot. 

“ I think if I had not brought you here into the open 
air you would have fainted in that hot room. You are not 
well, I am afraid.” 

It was Mr. Roberts’ voice, and he stood a little way 
from her now on the stone balcony. His voice sounded 
cool and far away, out there in the dusk and the still- 
ness. She put one trembling hand out to sustain her- 
self by the cold stone pillar. Was she not done with suf- 
fering yet ? 

“ I did not know I was so weak,” she said, simply. 

“ Nor I. I did not know I was so weak.” 

“ You ! You weak ? You are more skilled then in 
the art of concealment.” 

“ No,” he said, and the sudden recollection of the 
pawn-tickets lent a certain hardness to his tones, “ the 
palm for concealment still rests with you.” 

“If you only brought me out here to be unkind to me, 
you have certainly changed very radically since the last 
time we stood on this balcony.” 


CLOUDS LIFTING. 


251 


“ The last time we stood on this balcony,” he said, 
coming closer to her and speaking with vehement earnest- 
ness, “ I was on the point of asking you to be my wife. 
I loved you because I thought, beautiful as you were and 
are, for you never looked more beautiful in my eyes than 
you do at this moment, you possessed a beauty of soul, 
a sincerity, a purity and truthfulness that were incom- 
parably more valuable to me than any mere physical 
charm — ” 

“ And you have found ? ” she said questioningly. 

She stood very erect now. The full moon was shed- 
ding its pallid light upon her, just as it had shed it on 
that other night when they had stood together on this 
spot. Her eyes were upraised to his. Not pleading for 
forgiveness; not in deprecation of wrong-doing; not in 
consciousness of any ill desert, but proudly, defiantly — 
commanding, indeed, that he put his accusation into 
words, which he did. 

She never once changed her attitude during his hurried 
recital of that torturing day in which he had found her 
pocket-book, had watched her leave the house, had seen 
Lord Rainsforth’s son follow and accompany her. She 
scarcely heaved a sigh when his account came to an end 
and he stood before her, waiting apparently for her to 
exonerate herself by a counter recital. This she had no 
intention of doing. Her voice came to him very softly 
after a little : f 

“ Oh, thou of little faith ! ” 

Then she turned from him towards the window they 
had come out through. He caught her hand and drew 
her towards him, close and closer yet, until she rested 
placidly in the shelter of his arms. He could not doubt 


252 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


her. He gloried in her refusal to enter on the defen- 
sive. 

“ And is that all you have to say to me, Bella ? ” 

“ No ; I have this to say to you. The man who loves 
me as I want to be loved, must trust me in spite of 
appearances.” 

“ And is that the way you will love when you do love, 
oh, my sweet ? ” 

Then it came back to her how fierce an experience 
she had passed through that very day. Had she trusted 
him in spite of appearances ? Had she not just gone 
through an ordeal that had left her shaken to the very 
foundations of her being from unfounded jealousy ? She 
burst into a torrent of tears that swept away the last rem- 
nant of her obstinac}^ 

“ Ah ! I have been so unhappy, so unhappy ! ” she 
sobbed. “ I knew all that you have told me to-night long 
ago, but was powerless to set matters right. How could I 
when you would not even ask me a question ? ” 

“ I can’t conceive how you knew it.” 

“ About those hateful tickets I mean. It was Algie, 
poor Algie, always at the bottom of my troubles. I knew 
when he brought my things back that it was you who had 
redeemed them, and I thought he might have told you all 
about it, I cannot and will not ; you must think what you 
choose.” 

“ One thing, my darling ! you did not break your prom- 
ise to me ? ” 

“ I would have died first,” she said passionately, cling- 
ing to him as if for shelter from the trials and tempta- 
tions that had made life such a burden to her of late. 

“Thank God,” he murmured devoutly, drawing her hot 


CLOUDS LIFTING. 


253 


cheek down to his shoulder and pressing his lips fer- 
vently to the wet, closed lids that veiled her lovely eyes. 
“ My own ? ” It was a tender question. 

“ Your own — all your own,” she answered, standing on 
tip-toe to clasp her arms about his neck. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


CONCLUSION. 

“My!” 

This laconic exclamation came from Mrs. Doctor 
Rogers one morning when she had been made glad in her 
far-away Texas home by a letter from Mrs. Roberts. 
She looked about her restlessly for somebody to whom 
she could expand on the cause of that exclamation. 

The serenity of an early morning in May brooded over a 
very peaceful landscape and filled her eye with a certain 
sense of gratification, for that peaceful landscape was a 
part of her home possessions, and her home left nothing 
to be desired ; but just now she was very much in need 
of someone to impart her news to, and so she sent that 
restless outward glance in search of her husband. 

She saw him riding slowly towards the house, his big- 
rimmed soft felt hat pushed far back from his broad 
white forehead ; he was reading a newspaper that lay 
spread out on the saddle pommel in front of him. 

Flo was standing on the steps waiting impatiently for 
him, and the sight of her, so sweet and dainty in her fresh 
spring appareling, stirred him to a brisker walk across 
the grassy yard after he had dismounted at the rack by 
the fence. 

“ I’ve got a letter from Bella,” she said, slipping her 
arm into her husband’s as soon as he reached her side, 
“ and it contains several items of news.” 

“ Any of a very startling character ? ” 

254 


CONCLUSION. 


255 


“Yes. R. Algernon is married.” 

“ Who is the discriminating female ? ” 

“ Somebody neither you nor I ever heard of. I hope 
she will take good care of him.” 

“ Doubtless she will. It is quite certain he will take 
none at all of her. How is the old gentleman .? ” 

“ Perfectly well. Bella says he looks ten years younger 
than he did the night we all were married. Oh, that 
lovely night ! I wish we had it all to do over again. It 
was just perfect. I think I never saw a lovelier bride 
than Bella.” 

“ She said as much for you on that twofold occasion.” 

“ By the way, I have an item of news too,” he said. 
“ I’ve just been reading about a marriage in the paper I 
got in town, that concerns someone whose name occurs 
very often on one page of that remarkable-looking diary 
of yours. Miss Rose Neuman.” 

“ Miss Neuman married ? ” 

“ Yes. In Paris. Here’s quite a pretty account of 
it. 

Flo seized the paper and eagerly turned to the account 
of Miss Neuman’s wedding, while the doctor went in-doors 
to lay aside his hat and whip. But he came back to her 
promptly, and there, sitting on the low front steps in the 
pleasant May sunshine, they talked of Rose Neuman’s 
noble conduct and of her sad lot, now, they hoped, hap- 
pily altered. 

Presently the doctor said : “ I’ve often thought to ask 
you if anyone ever knew what was in those letters that 
shifted the horrible suspicion of murder from Newcome’s 
shoulders.” 

“ I never saw the letters, but I have heard that Bene- 


256 


THA T GIRL FROM TEXAS. 


dick declared in the most solemn manner that nothing 
was farther from his intention than taking Adolphe 
Neuman’s life. Neuman held papers that would have 
convicted the man of forgery. When it w’as thought that 
Mr. Neuman was going to allow his sister to marry 
Algernon Newcome, these papers were held in abeyance, 
and Benedick believed himself to be safe ; but when the 
marriage fell through he was frightened anew and made 
a desperate effort to steal the papers. 

“ He secreted himself in the house, and supposing that 
the family were all asleep he ventured into the library. 
Mr. Neuman heard him, and Benedick said in his confes- 
sion that when he saw him standing with a pistol in his 
hand, ready to fire at the supposed burglar, the instinct 
of self-preservation made him spring forward and close 
with him in what proved to be poor Mr. Neuman’s death- 
struggle. He carried him back to his bedroom a corpse, 
and then to escape detection managed so as to direct 
suspicion to Algernon Newcome. That was all. I hope 
Miss Neuman has married well. A nobler woman never 
lived.” 

“ Excepting one,” said Dr. Rogers, raising his wife’s 
white hand gallantly to his lips. 


THE END. 


BELFORD’S MAGAZINE 

BONN PIATT, Editor. 

A COMPLETE COPYRIGHT NOVEL IN EACH NUMBER. 


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I 


BELFORD’S 

MHGHZINE., 

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Washington, D. C. July. 16, 1888. 


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